Tragic Hero
by Kitty-Guardian Dorothy
Summary: Tragic hero: A protagonist with a tragic past. Very AU. Only three of the five remain. Two remain in hiding while the third hunts them down. Michaelangelo, now bitter, raises a warrior to destroy his hated enemy, who was once a loved family member.
1. Fallen family

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

**Authors note: I decided to do something a little different. This is a pretty much dark AU and it is a different concept. For one thing, the Shredder of this universe was human instead of Utrom. There are five mutant turtles - Venus from next mutation is actually their sister (Leonardo's twin) in this. Like in the oringinal comics, they all wear red masks, but they also all wear black cowls. I cannot reveal more without giving away more of the plot.**

**In this prologue, they are all twenty-five, as in the next chapter.**

* * *

"_What have we become?_

_Speak your mind, look out for yourself_

_The answer to it all is a life of wealth_

_Grab all you can, cause you just live once_

_You got the right to do whatever you want_

_Don't worry bout others or where you came from_

_It ain't what you were, it's what you have become."_

_-"_What have we become_" _by DC Talk.

* * *

_Hamato Splinter lay on a mat in his own dojo – his death-glazed, beady black eyes wide as if trying to see for the last time. A katana was pierced through his body, right in the center of his chest and stabbing through his heart. A puddle of blood surrounded him, and the same, once life-giving substance flecked his lips and ran out of the corner of his mouth._

_Only four of his five children were there, milled around him; their eyes wide as they stared down at the cooled body of their slain sire._

_The absent fifth child had been the one who had done this._

* * *

_Hamato Raphael lay sprawled out on the concrete ground besides a building – blood oozing out from his shattered shell and exiting even his eyes, mixing with the tears of disbelief leaving a clear-pinkish wet trail along his dark green face and soaking his red mask._

* * *

_Hamato Donatello was slumped against a_

_wall – his sides slashed to the point some of his entrails trailed out of it like ribbons from hell. The handle of a tanto was poking out of the stomach area of his plastron while the blade kept his body pinned to the wall like a nail._

* * *

_Hamato Michaelangelo and Hamato Venus DeMilo fled, struggling to do so. Where Michaelangelo's left eye once was, was nothing but a bloody mess. Where Venus's right hand once was, was a bleeding stump wrist. Both were covered in deep, extensive injuries._

_But these injuries paled in comparison to the slashes of grief in their hearts, which bled hatred and bitterness._

* * *

_Shadow Jones was peacefully asleep when a shuriken was shoved through her throat._

* * *

_With their hands still stained in blood, Oroku Karai and Hamato Leonardo clicked together their glasses of wine. The wine was almost as red as the blood, yet nothing besides the very congealing fluid could be as morbid as death itself._

* * *

**This idea has been floating in my head for a long time - I had to do it. Also, if my good friend Rose Black Dragon reads this... I am very sorry if you find this offensive in any way, but I _had _to write this story.**


	2. Leonardo of the genocidal blade

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

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"_I'm too young, to lose my soul_

_I'm too young, to feel this old_

_For so long, I'm left behind_

_I feel like I'm losing my mind."_

"World so cold_" _by Three Days Grace.

* * *

Many years ago, there lived a man named Hamato Yoshi. He was the star student of the Ninja Tribunal. When he was grown up, the Ninja Tribunal ordered he assassinate a man named Oroku Nagi and his young son Oroku Saki.

Oroku Nagi carried a curse of his linage – one of his ancient forerunners was the original Oroku Saki, or 'The Tengu Shredder'. The curse passed on from parent to child, cursing them with the demon of the Shredder. With even the most fortuitous minds they could only resist the demons soul taking over for a few years.

If Oroku Nagi, and his successor Oroku Saki were to be killed, the curse would be dead.

Yoshi joined the Foot Clan, an underground criminal organization of Ninja's run by the Oroku clan – none of his 'comrades' could see his true intensions to murder their leader.

Yoshi was such a talented ninja he very quickly became an Elite Foot ninja – they were the Shredders own personal body gaurds. Yoshi's plan would have succeeded, if he hadn't met a certain Elite ninja.

Oroku Nagi's wife, Tang Shen, was an Elite Foot ninja – she had been born a street rat who was taken in by the Foot clan when she was young, where she became childhood friends with Oroku Nagi. They fell in love and eventually married and had a son named Oroku Saki.

Yoshi was infatuated with Tang Shen – he loved her almost instantly and everything about her captivated him. Every time he planned to execute Nagi or Saki, he would think about Tang Shen and how devastated she would be if she were to find her family dead.

The Tribunal saw this and demanded he get the job done – when he refused, they disowned him as a student.

* * *

In a act of rebellion against the Tribunal, Yoshi gave up the plan entirely – he dropped out of the Foot, and opened a Ninjitsu dojo in Bronx, New York. He lived quietly, and alone besides a pet rat named Splinter given to him by Tang Shen who he didn't have the heart to get rid of.

A few years later, he ordered a clutch of pond slider turtle eggs for the pond in the 'backyard' – the turtle farm sent him five which hatched soon after; four males and a female.

Splinter seemed rather fond of the baby turtles, the rat was constantly along the edge of the pond, occasionally pulling the babies turtles out or basking with them, most of the time Splinter would just watch them fondly.

Life could not stay peaceful.

* * *

Oroku Nagi had murdered Tang Shen – in a fit of rage he struck down his own wife and killed her in a single, fatal blow. He had become paranoid, convinced she would leave him for Yoshi, for the two stayed close.

Soon after killing his wife, Oroku Nagi lied to his almost adult son Saki that Yoshi had killed his mother. Taking several of their foot ninja, father and son marched over to Yoshi's dojo and attacked.

Splinter, worried about the turtles safety but convinced his Master could never be struck down, took the turtles out of the pond and hid them, and himself, inside of a mole hole his master hadn't had the time to fill.

Yoshi fought bravely and valiantly he managed to fight off all of the Foot ninja until he was facing Nagi and Saki. The fight was gruesome and bloody, but Yoshi, upon hearing that Nagi murdered his beloved Tang Shen, slay him on the spot by cutting off his head.

Enraged, Saki murdered Yoshi in retaliation – the curse of the Shredder took his over as he stood over the dead body of Hamato Yoshi.

Splinter, shocked and devastated, dashed out of the hole and jumped onto Oroku Saki and attempted to scratch his throat out, but missed and scratched his face. Saki threw him off and sliced off his ear with his katana before leaving, carrying the body and head of his father with him.

* * *

Shaken by the whole ordeal, Splinter gathered the baby turtles in a coffee can and fled into the sewers.

A few weeks later, Splinter and his adopted brood washed themselves in a puddle of sewer water mixed with a strange green substance that came from a broken canister labeled 'TCRI', a 'ooze' that was actually highly radioactive mutagen. Over the course of the next couple of days, weeks and months, they changed rapidly into bi-pedal, humanoid anthromorphs.

They soon moved into the dojo – which was announced abandoned and boarded up and fenced off. No person passing on the sidewalk could guess that the 'abandoned' two-story building was occupied by a six mutants.

Having learned Ninjistu via watching and mimicking Master Yoshi, Splinter raised the turtles as his children and trained them in the art of Ninjitsu.

He gave them all names from a Renaissance Book (His master had been rather fond of studying the era) that still lie around the dojo. His sons names were Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo, and his only daughter was named Venus DeMilo (She was also Leonardo's twin by the looks of them.)

When the turtles were still only children, Master Splinter met two teenagers – April O'Neil and Casey Jones. During a supply run he saw a group of muggers trailing after them so he followed the two. When he saw one of the muggers produce a gun, he immediately jumped into action.

Surprised to see their rescuer was a giant rat, but grateful, the two teenagers did not run away and thanked Splinter for saving them – the two injected themselves into the family and become close family friends.

* * *

Years passed; his students/children excelled in martial arts, April grew up to become a doctor and Casey became a kick-boxing practitioner.

When the turtles were twenty, there came a problem. Splinter told the turtles he trained them to be ninja's so they would one day avenge Master Yoshi. Leonardo, who was the leader, when he learned to the truth, set a goal for himself to be the one to present the head of Oroku Saki to his master.

Though the turtles promised they would wait a little while longer, Leonardo secretly joined the foot and became a favored student of Oroku Saki even though Leonardo was a mutant turtle. Behind his families back, Leonardo pretended to be a loyal Foot ninja, and like Master Yoshi, became an Elite foot ninja in no time.

Also like Master Yoshi, he fell in love with the only female Elite foot ninja. This time it was not the wife, but the daughter.

Oroku Saki's daughter was three years younger than Leonardo, her name was Karai. She was completely unaware of Leonardo's advanced and brushed off his interest in her. She was not interested in him; she had a serious boyfriend at the time, Lyle Chaplin.

So captivated by Karai, Leonardo stopped returning home a year after joining the Foot clan. Having not known about Leonardo joining the foot in the first place, his family had no clue where he was and searched for him relentlessly. They never found him until three years later, when the turtles were twenty-four.

That point in time caused a chain reaction of horrible events.

* * *

Not only was Oroku Saki dead, but he had been killed by Leonardo himself. Which meant the curse had been passed down to Karai, who was pregnant with her husband Chaplin's child at the time. Karai was now the head of the Foot, and Leonardo was second-in-command. Though, in actuality Leonardo was the one with all the power and Karai was really just the figurehead.

In fact, his family hadn't even found him. He finally came back home – he just showed up at the Lair. Shocking his family literally stiff. With an insane smile on his face, Leonardo approached Master Splinter, who was going to greet his son with a hug before questioning his whereabouts of the past three years.

Leonardo stabbed him with a katana though the chest – piercing his heart and guaranteeing death. His siblings screamed in disbelief and devastation when their father had fallen to the ground, starring up at his son; his son who had killed him.

Leonardo left, no remorse at all – he even kept the insane grin, satisfied that he just killed the rat who had fed, sheltered, raised, trained and loved him as if he truly was his own.

It hadn't even stopped their, Leonardo ordered his family be hunted down and slaughtered. The abandoned dojo that had been their home for twenty-our years was set ablaze by Foot ninja's, not killing them by driving them into the sewers.

Two months later, Raphael was killed – He and Leonardo had fought on Rooftop, Raphael's chances would have been better if his brother hadn't been backed up by dozens of Foot ninja's. Raphael was overwhelmed, and driven literally over the edge of the building. He plummeted to his demise.

Donatello was next – Leonardo ambushed him, killing him with a fatal stab.

Leonardo was relentless, merciless – he didn't stop when he failed to annihilate Michaelangelo and Venus, even if he maimed them both by cutting off Venus's right wrist and mutilating Michaleangelo's left eye in combat; the two however, did injure Leonardo extensively as well – he was scarred horribly. Leonardo alienated them from their alies; the homeless people they knew from the Junkyard were all murdered, Venus's mentor, a vigilante known as 'Nobody' was also killed, even a young woman whom Michaelangelo was friends with was murdered, along with her brother.

Casey and April were not killed, but when Leonardo took his next victim, they wish they had been. One night - only a few days after Donatello's death - Leonardo had snuck into the Jones' apartment and into their nursery where their baby daughter, Shadow Jones, was sleeping. He took out a shuriken and used it to cut the baby's throat, killing her instantly, he didn't stop then – he pushed the shuriken further unill her head was severed from her body.

The next morning, April and Casey came to check on their baby to find Leonardo rocking on the rocking chair, holding their baby bundled in a blanket. They were frozen

He smiled and fondly stared down at their daughters face before saying "Take this as a warning." He had said, before he set the baby back down into the crib and jumped out of the window.

The couple immediately rushed to their baby's aid, but they were far too late – Shadow was with the angels.

April and Casey moved out of New York, cut all ties off with two remaining turtles.

Now, a year later, Michaelangelo and Venus were twenty-five years old; most of their family was dead, as were their allies, they were scarred and maimed, and they had no home. They had gone through more tragedies in one year than one should go through in a lifetime.

* * *

His own reflection angered him.

His three-fingered hand gripped the edge of the bathroom mirror as he glared at his own reflection, which was hard with only one eye. The left eye-hole of his red mask was stitched together to hide his mutilated eye. It was a harsh reminder of his evil brother Leo - no _Leonardo, _who he refused to ever call a brother again. Yet the evil bastards influence refused to leave him alone - all of the scars carved along his body were from Leonardo. The reason he and Venus were living in a abadoned cesspool of a gas station in Queens was because of Leonardo. The reason he was a empty shell, a shadow of his former self was because of Leonardo.

Michaelangelo felt even more torn up at the fact that even though they was only twenty-five years old, he and Venus weren't lving, only existing.

Mikey picked his ripped-up black cowl from the bathroom floor and put his head through the neck hole and into the hood. It managed to cover his scars poorly, and shadow his features.

From the corner of the mirror, he saw his sister Venus standing at the doorway of the bathroom – she, like him, sported a red mask, brown belt, and a cowl along with metal-capped elbow/knee pads. He had to suppress a growl; Venus looked too much like Leo_nardo _for comfort. The only thing that kept him from mistaking her for the _enemy _was the metal cap over her right stump wrist – it served to remind him just how evil their brother was. Fuck, no matter what Mikey looked at all he could find was another reason to hate Leonardo.

"Mikey," Venus addressed, he saw the disproved look in her eyes "are you ready?" It sounded as if it were painful for her to ask, and knowing her it probably was. Mikey himself was deeply ashamed over what he was doing, but he had to do it.

"Yeah," Mikey said, voice empty – void of any emotion. He picked up his nunchaku from the sink and hooked them over his belt.

"This is sick, Mikey." Venus told him "You shouldn't do this – _she _does not deserve this, she in innocent!" She insisted.

Mikey ignored her, he walked over to the door and pushed past the other ninja. Their shells faced each other now, they weren't looking at each other. "She doesn't deserve it, Mike." Venus repeated.

"But Leonardo and Karai do!" Mikey almost yelled, though on the inside he knew it the only true motivation he had was his own bitterness and hatred - He had lost so much, he knew nothing more.

* * *

His now cold-blue eyes stared down at the four-month-old baby sleeping in its crib; it was the baby daughter of Karai and Chaplin, Oroku Jade. Chaplin was dead, he had died in a accidental lab accident three weeks after his little daughter was born.

Mikey had snuck into the nursery at the Oroku Manor, he was going to assassinate Jade, in retaliation to Leonardo murdering Shadow in cold blood.

She seemed so small and innocent – off into dreamland, completely unaware of the danger literally looming its head in form a dagger. He was going to make it quick, she wasn't even going to feel any pain.

He tried to ignore how innocent she looked, he focused on the things he didn't like – one thing he absolutely despised about this _beast _was it's resemblance to Karai; it's build, it's dark hair. It didn't even look like Chaplin.

"Night-night, beast." Mikey said and thrust the blade down.

_Blood soaked the sheets of the crib….._

* * *

Venus knew her prayers were un-answered when her brother came home. If she had any tears left to shed, they would have built up in her eyes when she eyed his hand; sticky-wet in crimson blood.

"Venus," Michaelangelo called to her softly, but she was silent "it is done."

With a heart as cold and heavy as steel, Venus DeMilo responded.

"I know."

* * *

...**_Problem, gentlemen?_**

**_This chapter served to mostly be a backstory for the AU. Next chapter will revolve around the actuall plot, which is around Mikey (Or 'Master Michaelangelo') and his student, who I think some people could guess._**

**_Please R and R, I worked hard on this chapter._**


	3. Tragic Ninja and his savage student

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

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"_Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here everyday._

_You learn to live like an animal, in the jungle where we play._

_You gotta remember what you see, you'll see it eventually._

_You can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me._"

"Welcome to the Jungle." By Gun N' Roses.

The day before hell was actually pretty normal.

* * *

"Father! Father! _Faaatttthhhheeeerrrr! _Wake up!" A voice rang and echoed in a stone cave carved into the side of Mount Shasta. Inside this cave, two beings dwelled – two beings that weren't bears as most people would expect to live in a rocky cave.

Michaelangelo yawned and opened his single blue eye – despite his lack of depth perception, he could clearly see his adopted human daughter kicking his side and jumping up and down.

"Moth," he groaned "you are twenty years old; you don't need me for dawn runs anymore." Michaelangelo rolled back onto his side and pulled his deerskin blankets back over him. A frown creased on Moth's scarred, dirt-stained face; the young ninja reached for the canteen of water from the side of the sleeping mat, yanked the covers off of her father and poured ice-cold water on him.

Michaelangelo instantly jumped out of the mat, seething with grumpy anger. "YOU BRAT!" He screamed. Moth giggled and dashed away, her sensei hot on her heels "I'm going to punch you in the face until your face hurts!" He threatened – being half-asleep, he could only come up with a rather comical threat.

"You're going to have to catch me first, old man!" Moth taunted as she rocketed out of the cave, dashing onto the path that twined around the mountain, it had taken years to mesmerize the run and wear the path down with running feet.

"I am not _old!_" Master Michaelangelo shouted and angrily trailed after his adopted child.

"I don't know, forty-five sounds old to me!" Moth taunted with her amber eyes twinkling joyously, and jumped into a tree, looping around the branches a few times.

The turtles anger cooled as they continued scaling up the mountain – as they climbed higher up the mountain, the sun climbed higher up the sky, filling the tree-dense with beams of light.

* * *

Though his anger was cooled, it didn't mean Michaelangelo wouldn't have his revenge.

Moth stopped and kneeled along the side of a stream to take a drink – the stream had come from the top of mountain, and the water was melted snow-and-ice. With his disciples back turned to him, Michaelangelo raised his foot and used it to push her over the edge.

"Fff-fff," Moth gasped out, sitting in the water and starting to shiver "fffffuuuuck! That's f-f-fucking c-c-cold!"

Michaelangelo let out a small snort and crossed his arms as a amused crooked his lips "An old senile man once said, 'Payback's a bitch'."

"You're fucking senile too!" Moth snarled as picked herself up out of stream, shaking droplets of water out of her ragged dusky-brown hair.

"Not yet, but soon." Master Michaelangelo said to his daughter and she returned to his side "And when I do go senile – it'll be hell for you; your going to have to feed me, take care of me, and I'm telling myself right now that your name is Jim and you're my slave."

"Father…." Moth groaned at the thought.

* * *

Their lives weren't exactly perfect, but Moth accepted things as they were, and she would be, perhaps, less happy, if things were different. Moth could be considered a little too accepting – she was never bothered by anything about her life.

She wasn't bothered that her father was bi-polar, strict, not afraid to say things no matter how offensive (he called it 'blatant honesty'), somewhat insensitive, and well on the road towards senility. Hell, she wasn't even bothered that he committed infanticide to one who would be her age.

She knew full well that the true reason of her father ever adopting a child from an orphanage in the first place was so he could raise a warrior to help him destroy his enemy, who was also his blood brother; none of this bothered her. An good portion of people would feel used, or like a tool; it made Moth feel special.

There are a number of possibilities for this type of apathy; she was eager to please her father, knowing the story of her fathers past so well she had become adapted to putting herself in the same position to the point of hating Leonardo like he did.

It could also be because Moth wasn't exactly the zenith of sanity either. This was a young woman, who as a little girl, would catch field mice with her bare hands and break their necks, play with their dead bodies as if they were another little girls dollies; then she would take a stick, stab it through the mouse from mouth to anus, and roast it over an open fire as a kebab with a couple of field-snakes. This was a young woman, who had spent her entire life with a giant, talking, bloodthirsty turtle.

* * *

You are probably wondering where she came from; her story starts in a small orphanage in New Jersey.

Her parents she did not know; her mother, who was either a homeless woman or a teenager who wasn't ready for a child, left her as a baby in front of an orphanage with only a first name; Moth. Her first memories were the lonely ones from that orphanage.

It was when she was two, Michaelangelo who would later adopt her, was finally driven away from New York by his brothers constant assaults on him and his sister Venus DeMilo: Michaelangelo and Venus separated; Venus fled to some other state and Michaelangelo spent the next three years in New Jersey.

A year after moving to New Jersey, Michaelangelo realized he'd need to raise his own student to one day destroy Leonardo, so he picked Moth out from all the other orphans; he visited her every night for a year, and when she was four he finally took her away from the orphanage and they hitched a ride on a plane to California, where they settled on the bulwark of mountains that surrounded the golden state.

From the time she was five, Moth was trained viciously in Ninjitsu and wilderness survival; she made her first kill when she was six. Her first 'victim' was a rabbit and the weapon she had used was a rather crude tomahawk that was extremely difficult for her to carry or use at the time because of her tiny, underdeveloped child stature.

Now, fifteen years later; Moth was very close to mastering Ninjitsu. She was a prodigal warrior, the apple of her fathers single eye; she knew that very soon she would finally have a welcome rest from training and go to war with Leonardo and the vicious Foot clan.

* * *

Finally, they came near to the top of the mountain; snow capped the top of the mountain, and while in this spot it was more slush than actually snow, it would serve its purpose to them quite well.

Moth kicked a tree and broke off a large pierce of bark from its trunk; Master Michaelangelo did the same. They set the giant slabs of bark on the top of a foothill of stared down at the spot where snow and forest met.

"I'll beat you this time." Moth told her sensei in a cocky tone.

"The only time you'll beat me is when I'm dead." Michaelangelo said back and they snow-boarded down the side of the foothill with superb speed.

"WHOOOHOO!" Moth whopped and bended her knees as she crouched down, grabbing the edge of the bark-slab. "Eat my dust, old man!"

"You first!" Michaelangelo said before his 'board' rocketed off of a rock jutting out of the snow, sending him right into the forest.

This side of the mountain they were on was rather slanted; even when off the snow they would continue to 'board' down the side of the mountain until they were near home, especially with all the momentum they gain at the beginning. Knowing the mountain as well as they did, they would never hit tree's or rocks because they k new when to move away from them, weave between the foliage and dodge anything that could stop them – their movements were much like the wind.

Halfway down, Moth was far ahead of her father and took an alternate path home which she knew was a short cut – this time she was going to finally beat him back home.

Moth's board slid down the rocks and she flipped in the air a few times before landing on her feet in front of the cave entrance. Triumphantly, she raised her hands up into the air "Ha, I win!" She cheered.

"Really?" A dreaded reply came from behind her; she turned to see her father leaning against the cave wall – his cowl, nunchaku and mask were on which meant he must have gotten here a while before Moth did.

Moth stamped the ground in a small tantrum "How do you _do _that?" She demanded.

"Do you really think you are the only one who knows the shortcuts?" Master Michaelangelo chuckled "Now put on your over-gear and get your weapons for training."

Yawning and looking up at the sun which had gotten higher up in the sky, making it morning now, Moth entered the cave and took the short walk to the end where her own sleeping mat was.

Moth's under-gear consisted of baggy shorts and a jersey made of light-brown deerskin, a forearm band of reddish-brown moose fur, a belt also made of moose fur, gear capped with animal bones and wrist-guards made of rabbit fur. She also had a necklace made of eagle feathers and animals sharp teeth (fangs and canines of coyotes, bears and bobcats). Like her father, she also wore a red mask, which was the only 'fabric' she ever wore.

Her over-gear was consisted a cowl – it wasn't black fabric like her fathers was; the cape part of it was made of black bears fur, while the hood part of it was the actual gray-furred head of a coyote that she had skinned, the skinned feet of a black bear that still had the toes and claws which she used as boots and kept tied to her ankles with white gauss, and the skinned paws of the black bear which she used as gauntlets with the claws; she had cut out the five toe-pads of the bear and stuck her fingers out of them, she also kept these tied to her wrists with gauss.

With her cowl, gauntlets and boots on, Moth grabbed her beloved weapons – a metal tomahawk and twin scimitar (Arabian Swords). Her tomahawk would be strapped to her back under her cowl while her scimitar would be strapped to her waist in the sword-holsters connected to her belt.

Training lasted all day and ended at sun set. At training Moth would practice the katas she already knew but strived to memorize completely, shadow fight, exercise, stretch, learn a few knew techniques, meditate and live-spar with her father with and without their weapons. It was because of all of this constant training Moth believed war would be a welcome rest.

At sunset it was dinnertime – they still had plenty of moose jerky from an earlier hunt and dried forest herbs, luckily this time of year the plentiful blackberries were ripe so they had some of those too. Moth was a little disappointed their salt reserves had run out, but her father promised they would have another 'supply run' soon, which brightened Moth up a little.

They only had supply runs a few times a year, where they would re-stock on medical supplies, food items they rarely had (like candy, which Moth loved), trivial luxuries such as books or magazines and they would visit their good family friends, the McLeod's, which was the time that Moth would get to watch TV or play videogames or play with the other humans (The McLeod parents had six children, two baby/toddler boys, two adolescent boys, a adolescent girl and an young lady only a year younger than Moth.

After dinner, Moth popped her neck and walked away from the clearing in front of their cave-home "I will go to my pack now." Moth told her father. He nodded and gave her a brief warning to not be seen by humans before she ran off.

* * *

In a much smaller, separate cave a mile away, there lived a savage pack of coyotes that slept during the day and came out at night to hunt. The pack had one female with pups (two males), two other female pack members, and three male pack members. There was only one alpha. And while this alpha was indeed furry, savage and smelled terrible like they did, it was not exactly a coyote like that….

"Wake up, dogs!" Moth growled as she entered the cave – she heard smothered growls and whimpers from the cave. Being a trained ninja, Moth could see in the dark as well as she could in the day, and could see her pack rise from their bellies and trot over to her. Their jaws were tied shut with gauss that she had tied on.

Two years ago, she had taken control of this pack by slaying their alpha (the head of which was now the hood of her cowl that she wore) when they had tried to steal food from her home. Deciding to become their new leader, Moth had fought the coyotes (law of the club and fang) and made it to where they had to obey her; the gauss around their jaws only she could untie; only she could allow them to eat or drink. She lead them in hunting, she commanded when they attacked or fled, she stalked and attacked pray along side them, she chased away threats or enemies in form of rival coyote packs.

Moth entered the coyotes den and approached he mother coyote – the mother coyote was the only adult one that didn't have her jaws sealed, and this had been so ever since she was pregnant. "Hello Non-Fang," Moth said and patted the mother coyotes head; No-Fang had gotten her name by being easily the most docile of her pack, she would not snap her jaws at Moth ever, even when she was so close to her puppies. "Hello Jumper, Hoot." She addressed the two pups. The pups, Jumper and Hoot were two brother puppies that did not need to suckle anymore. Jumper was the bigger puppy, who trotted with a stride as if he were the alpha and had very much energy. Hoot was quiet, and rather creepy with his too-big black eyes.

Moth frowned when she heard a compressed growl behind her "Give it a rest, Raphael." She said to the large, brown, male coyote behind her who was also the father of Jumper and Hoot. She had named him after her dead uncle whom her father often talked about. The coyote Raphael was easily the most angry, impulsive, savage and often anti-social. (And, admittedly, every time her father mentioned his brother Raphael, she always imagined a rabid, savage-like turtle that lurked around his brothers like a guard-dog and growled at anything that came too close.) He was fiercely over-protective of his mate and pups and made it clear he did not respect Moth as alpha, as he was a coyote that could not be controlled and would perhaps make a better rogue that pack-dog. He snapped at Moth every time she freed his jaws from the bonds, even though he would be punished afterwards. He was her favorite coyote, because of his fierce nature.

Raphael growled as best he could between clenched jaws and shook his head a few times, black eyes fixated on her and filled with spite.

Moth ignored him and petted the elder-coyote that trotted towards her "Good evening, Splinter." She said to the elder-coyote; she named this coyote after her fathers father, Master Splinter – Michaelangelo explained Splinter as a wise old rat, who was very kind and very calm, but to Michaelangelo he had been old his entire life. Coyote Splinter was blind, had a ragged pelt and walked with a constant limp. He would be considered useless, since he could not hunt or fight, but he did guard the den and any of the pup-mothers that did not hunt. Coyote Splinter was possible the most domesticated of the group.

The other male pack member was named Speed, as he was easily the most swift-footed. And the two other females were named Song (as she was the most vocal) and Thug (The one with ruthless, savage, bloodthirsty behavior that exceeded Raphael. It almost seemed as if this female coyote killed more for sport than food.)

"Dogs," Moth commanded "tonight we hunt – I spotted a moose nearby; fill our bellies for days." The pack was silent, standing straight on their paws like quadruped soldiers in pelts – she knew they could not understand her human language, but they would almost seem as if they could understand her intention, her tone, her message to them.

With a motion of her head and a quick growl, she left the coyotes den and her pack followed.

* * *

Moth was fast; her father was fast, the fastest out of all of his brothers even and Moth exceeded his speed do to her younger age, denser bone structure (reptiles have rather hollow bones) and practically boundless energy and endurance. Being as fast as she was, Moth could both keep up, and lead the coyotes on a run – they trailed at her heels, their paws kneading the ground and their tongues lolling out of their mouths with foam bubbling the corners of their jaws.

Through the foliage, ruffage, shrubs and trees the coyote pack and their human alpha treaded – the forest was theirs and not even the trees could compete with the ruthless gang of savages.

Moth stopped abruptly and crouched behind a tree – she gave a small growl to warn her coyotes and they stopped as well, getting into a four-legged crouch and holding their heads low and ears stooped, fur bristles. The dusky-haired savage pointed at the creature in the clearing – a young female moose with rippling muscles, and a middle-sized young moose that must have been the offspring. The offspring was half-grown and it would still take a while before it would be able to leave its mothers side. The mother and offspring lay in the clearing, asleep.

"We go after the offspring." Moth whispered to her pack. Raphael automatically snarled at her in protest between the muzzle-clamp in protest – with a growl of her own, Moth grabbed her subordinates furry ear and yanked his head down, twisting his neck in an awkward way and making the normally proud coyote whine high in his throat. "Obey." She growled "The mother is young – she will have more babies, perhaps whenever she is larger and stronger; it would be crueler to leave the moose-ling without a mother. The offspring will feed us just fine, and he has more fat and will give us energy."

She let got of Raphael's ear; the coyote shoot his head and snorted through his nose. Moth reached into her cloak and out fell a few hunting knives – one thing that made this coyote pack especially savage and fierce, was that Moth rained them to hold the hunting knives in their jaws and use the blades instead of their fangs. It was unusual and dangerous in the animal world, for mostly humans were the only being who had the ability to use tools.

She untied the bonds from her hellhounds jaws – they opened their mouths to stretch them out; as expected, Raphael snapped at her as soon as his fangs were free, which earned him another ear-boxing. The dogs, by the command of their training, picked up the knives on the ground by the handles and the blade stuck out from the side of their jaws.

The slowly advanced on the sleeping mother and offspring, and just when their noses were hairline-close to poking out of the brush, Moth gave a loud howl of a battle-call and the pack, and their human alpha, pounced.

It was impossible for the moose-mother to get up fast enough, or her baby – Moth would distract the mother moose while her hellhounds would deal with the real prey.

As Raphael and Thug, the most bloodthirsty of the coyotes, were first to get to the offspring; the baby gave out a rather pathetic squeal as the claws and blades of the two savage coyotes tore at it and blood ran over its velvety reddish-brown fur. The other coyotes surrounded them, waiting for the kill to be over.

With a loud nay of anger, the moose-mother rose up and attempted to charge at the hellhounds that dare go after her offspring. But Moth anticipated this and already had her trust tomahawk out – she as the moose-mother were at a fierce battle, Moth would strike with her tomahawk, cutting and slashing the moose-mother. And the mother in return would throw her head up and attack with her horns but Moth would only block by turning her tomahawk.

The moose-mother stood momentarily on her hind-legs and stamped down with her front ones, but Moth was too fast and moved between the front legs and swung a hard-fist at the ribcage. The moose-mother gave a loud grunt of pain and fell on her side, breathing heavily and neighing in pain over her shattered ribs. Moth grinned; even if her hands were small and slender, they were still very strong due to the countless iron-fist training sessions she'd had in her life.

The moose-ling was dead; it gave one last shuddering breather and its body twitched in response before it fell still – permanently.

Speed, the one who respected Moth as alpha the most, bumped his head against Moths leg and tilted his head towards the moose-ling. Moth gave the moose-mother a fleeting glance and walked over to the dead offspring.

She lifted the moose-ling by the legs and threw it over/behind her head and shoulders in a firemans-carry with the legs dangling over the front of her body. She grunted a little – even when young, moose were heavy.

The savage leader, with her savage pack trotting at her heels, trekked back to the coyotes cave.

* * *

About an hour later, back at the cave, the coyotes bellies were full and their heads lay in their blood-stained paws which they still licked. Moth sat on a rock in the cave – she had managed to hack off all four of the mooselings legs. As alpha, she always had first pick at the food and had hacked off the pieces she wanted; they did not always hunt successfully, and it had been a while since any of them have had fresh meat. Moth and Master Michaelangelo had been living on only jerky and mountain plants/berries for the past several weeks, fresh meat would be a blessing.

"I go now, dogs." Moth said and tied the coyotes jaws shut again. As always, Raphael was a struggle – he growled, snarled and snapped and did not submit even when his jaws were secured.

She patted Splinter and Non-Fang, and rubbed Jumper and Hoots plump bellies before jogging back home.

* * *

"Father." Moth called, entering her stone home – she knew her father was not asleep, as she could see from the soft light emanating through the cozy cavern. "Father." She called again, hanging the moose-meat to dry and stopped when she saw her father sitting in lotus position on her sleeping mat with candles lit around him. He was meditating; and very deep in the Astral plain by the looks of it, this explained why he had not responded to his daughter calling him.

Yawning again, Moth sat beside him and breathed evenly, letting herself relax and slowly drifted away spiritually.

* * *

"_Hello Moth." A being on the astral plain said to Moth through the mist – Moth smiled and hugged her spiritual companion._

"_Hello, Jade!" Moth chirped to her dead friend._

_Another thing to prove that Moth had the short end of the sanity stick, was that her best friend was a dead girl her father had killed when she (Jade) was a baby, and whose body he'd dumped into the Hudson river to get revenge on Karai and Leonardo._

_Jade seemed to grow as Moth did – after all, they were only months apart. Jade had appeared to Moth whenever the dusky-haired savage was five and had succeeded in meditation, and at the time Jade was a little girl too. Now they were both young women._

_Oroku Jade had dark hair, green eyes and light skin – she looked much like her mother Karai, at least that's what Moth believed, as that was how her father had explained to her what Karai looked like. Jade was at a constant state of apathy and had a very frail-looking build. If she wasn't a constant feature in Moths life, she would find her rather creepy._

"_Okay, so today father taught me…" As she explained, she demonstrated the new martial arts moves her father had shown her that day. Unofficially, Jade was Moth's 'student', whatever Moth learned she taught to Jade. _

"_Tuck your fist in more, raise your arm higher and don't be so stiff." Moth corrected Jades stance and movements. _

_Right as their session ended, Moth felt that she was being pulled away. Moth frowned "Bye Jade. See you next night." She said to her spirit friend._

_Jade looked at Moth seriously "Listen to me, my friend." Jade hissed "Danger is closing in, it had been advancing for years but now it is closer than ever, soon it will strike – much like the movements of your pack."_

_Before Moth, who was shocked, could respond, she was out of the astral plain._

* * *

"Moth, it is time to sleep." Master Michaelangelo said to his student – Moth blinked, her eyelids were heavy now; she hadn't even realized she was so tired.

Moth yawned "'Kay. Goodnight Father," her voice was heavy "love you."

Michaelangelo kissed the top of his daughter head affectionately "Goodnight my daughter, love you too." He said and lie on his sleeping mat.

Moth moved to her own sleeping mat, which she then sat on, and removed her cowl, boots, cuffs, necklace and gauntlets. She put her head on the dried grass-filled fur pillow and pulled her deerskin blankets over her and fell into a heavy sleep.

Today had been normal.

Neither Moth, nor Michaelangelo, expected that tomorrow would be completely different – tomorrow would be the start of hell.

* * *

**_And we have met Moth and older-Mikey. This is a normal day for them. _**

**_Moth is an OC I made a long time ago and use a lot, and I always want to potray her as being... Completely nuts, I cAnnot stress this enough; but she is FUCKING CRAZY! A crazy, ninja savage... Good job Mikey, and good luck Leonardo._**

**_What happened to Venus, you ask? More explaination soon..._**


	4. Assault

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"_And we'll be carrying on, until the day it doesn't matter anymore; step aside, you forgot what this is for_

_We fight to live, we live to fight; and tonight you'll hear my battle-cry_

_We live our lives on the frontlines, we're not afraid of the fast times_

_These days have opened up my eyes; so now I see where the threat lies!_"

"Frontline" by Pillar.

* * *

Michaelangelo was awoken by the sudden feeling that something was wrong – and as soon as he was awake, he gagged. The air was thick, acrid; the whole cave in which he and his daughter lived in was full of smoke. The smoke was a reddish-brown color and had a sharp, biting odor.

'_Please be okay, please be okay._' Michaelangelo chanted in his head as he held his breath and crawled over to Moth's sleeping mat, he tried his best not to panic; having lost many dear to him already, the prospect of losing another member of his family was one of the few things on this planet Earth that could truly hurt him.

He turned his sleeping daughter to lie on her back instead of side and put the side of his finger under her nose – no breathing. He put another finger to her neck and the side of his head to her chest; there was a heartbeat and pulse, but both were very, very slow. He mentally sighed in relief; the Shasta Mountains had forests fires every other year and it was often that the forest would rain ash and fill with smoke as result. For most, breathing would become a hazard; but thankfully, Michaelangelo had learned Chi Kung, an internal martial art that focuses on breathing exercises that many ninja's learn. With practice, one can take short breaths not that often, and decrease their heart rate. He had Moth practice this to the point to where she could literally slip into a session in her sleep whenever her body felt the lack of oxygen. He could do the same.

'_I don't remember a fire…_' Michaelangelo thought '_And this doesn't smell like a typical forest-fire smoke… It's almost like…_' His single blue eye widened; frantically, he yanked his black cowl from the side of his bed and put it on, and grabbed his nunchucks. Equally as frantic, but still calm as not to disturb his breathing, he equipped Moth with her over-gear and weapons. Quickly, he picked Moth up bridal-style and ran out of the cavern.

Once he was outside; he took a deep breath of oxygen. Wrenchingly, his paranoia was found to be correct; only the cave was filled with smoke, outside it was a clear and normal almost-dawn night.

They had been smoked out – like mice or rats in wall-holes.

Safe; he needed to find a safer place first, or whoever (or _what_ever) had done this to them would find them.

Sad thing was, he had a pretty good idea of _what _had smoked them out.

* * *

Michaelangelo dashed through the trees while listening intently for anything that would be out of the ordinary in the forest, and there was; silence. Contrary to popular belief, the forest was never silent; he knew from experience that crickets stopped chirping whenever someone/thing large came close to it, and night creatures would still be prowling about if they didn't feel threatened. Meaning, he and Moth were not alone in this forest.

Finally he came to somewhere that could be considered safe; a large pipe jutting horizontally out of the ground from a ditch. In the past, it must have been used to transfer spring water from point A to point B, but the spring dried up and the pipe was abandoned. The circumference of the pipe was actually very wide and the ditch was very deep, enough for both of them to hide just for a little while.

Crouching in the ditch, Michaelangelo placed Moth on the inside of the pipe sitting upright, and he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her fiercely "Moth. Moth; wake up!"

His daughters eyelids fluttered open, revealing confused amber eyes. Moth sucked in a sudden, sharp breath upon awakening, as ending to her Chi Kung session.

"Wha s'appening, father?" Moth asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

"We are under attack." Michaelangelo whispered, which shot Moth awake almost instantly.

"What?" Moth whispered back, then realized they were not home "What happened? Why are we here?"

"Someone tried to kill us," Michaelangelo told her, his single blue eye flashed with hatred "they filled our cave with Nitrogen Dioxide – it's a toxic gas. If we hadn't slipped into Chi Kung in our sleep, we'd both be cold corpses right now."

Her scarred, dirty face pale; Moth nodded "What do we do, then?"

An almost malicious grin filled out her fathers green face as he said "We turn Shasta Mountains into the forest of the blood-stained leaves, of course."

With a crazed grin of her own, Moth took out her tomahawk and said "I agree – it is only correct we do not let invaders in our territory."

* * *

"Do you think it is dead yet?" A sentry asked his comrades as they returned to the turtles lair; the Nitrogen Dioxide had cleared by now, and in the few hours it had been since they had started to fill the cave with the toxic gas, it had been more than enough time to terminate the turtle.

"Master said this turtle was clever, do you think he survived?" Another sentry asked; there was a large group of them, about a score of them in fact. They had at first thought it to be ridiculous that there have to be so many of them for one simple recon mission to just gas a turtle, but their master had warned them of this turtles ability to deceive.

"It should be safe to check." Another said and dashed inside. He returned moments later, and his face was deathly white.

"It is not there." He choked.

"Impossible!" One barked; "It should have stayed asleep until it was dead!"

"It must have escaped!" Another rationalized "We must hunt it down."

"Interesting odds." A sudden, new voice from the opposite side of the clearing said; in shock, the sentry's turned around and held out their swords, only to almost drop them.

Even though the beginning of dawns light was very faint, through the darkness they could see what looked like a short, humanoid bear, with scimitars held in both 'paws', a wolves head and a persons scarred face.

"_What the hell is that?_" One sentry whispered.

"Lets see…. There is only one of me," the thing continued to muse "and uhh…. How many of you? I'm having a hard time counting in the dark…"

"Let's kill it now!" One commanded and half of the recon group charged.

"That's better." The thing said and charged at them, with a swift strike of it's swords it cut off the heads of the sentries from their bodies and filled the air with sprays of blood "One severed head…." It had started to count "Two severed heads, three severed heads, four severed heads, five severed heads, six severed heads, seven severed heads, eight severed heads, nine severed heads…." It couldn't count as swiftly as it was actually cutting the heads off.

The remaining eleven sentries who had not charged stood frozen in horror as the blood-spattered _creature _stopped and turned its face to them; amber eyes wild behind its red mask and an insane grin sported.

"Looks like I'm close to double-digits now." It hissed and pointed its bloody scimitar at them.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" One of them shrieked to his comrades.

"I don't think so…." The creature chuckled "My friends here are going to have to stop you…." As if on cue, coyotes jumped out of the bushes; two of them held daggers in their mouths and the rest had what looked like metal claws around their paws, much like the ones roosters use in illegal cockfights.

The sentries were like statues as the coyotes jumped them.

* * *

"We're here." Michaelangelo said as they came to the Whiskey-Town dam, early in the morning. His daughter grunted; they had to drag all nineteen bodies of the sentries here by dragging them on a cart that Moth had to pull while he lead.

"Dump them in, if the fish don't eat them than authorities will just assume there's a serial killer." He instructed, and she did just that.

"Why did they come after us?" Moth asked him, the concealed rage Michaelangelo had been hiding inside for years gnawed at him. He damn well knew who had done this.

"Because your oh-so-dear uncle sent them after us." Michaelangelo responded in a growl "Which means war is on, and its time that son-of-a-bitch was destroyed."

Moth nodded and kept a grin to herself; finally, a rest from training.

* * *

The Sergeant of the Foot waited patiently at the foothills of the Shasta Mountains in an abandoned building that some moonshiner must have used at some point but was arrested a long time ago.

His malevolent light brown eyes did not waver when the door burst open; he calmly turned around and saw one of the sentries at the doorway, breathing heavily as if he had been running non-stop for hours. H was covered in grave, extensive wounds and cuts. He was covered in vicious claw masks, teeth marks and somehow, even wounds that had been inflicted by weapons.

"Was he there?" Sergeant asked coldly as his underling fell to the ground.

"Creature…." The Sentry croaked "w-wolves… Retaliated… All dead…" The Sergeant walked into him and grabbed his jaw in on hand and squeezed, causing the injured man to cry out of pain.

"Was he there?" The Sergeant demanded, even harsher this time.

"Y-yes…." The sentry answered "A-and he's not alone…."

"That is all I need to know." The Sergeant said before taking out his katana from the cross-sheathe on his back "You are of no more use to me." He stated emotionlessly as he sliced off the head of the Sentry.

He whipped the blood off of his face with apathy and grabbed the communicated from inside of his uniform "Target found." He said into it "Send reinforcements immediately, many squadrons."

The Sergeant knew that the sentries stood absolutely no chance at all, but he honestly did not care as long as they told him what he needed to know; the whereabouts of Hamato Michaelangelo. It had taken twenty years and many dead leads, but they had finally found him.

* * *

"Do we have to leave home?" Moth asked, dissapointed, as they filled their packs.

"For the hundredth time Moth; yes!" Michaelangelo responded impatiently. "We will go visit our friends and stay overnight, then get your aunt Venus, and then we all go back to New York."

"We'll kill Leonardo, right?" Moth asked, somewhat excitedly.

"No, we won't kill." Michaelangelo told her, seeing her expression drop he added "We'll make him _suffer. _His last screams will be him begging for death, and then we'll present his head to Satan."

"Nice." Moth said and continued to hide her kunai, shuriken, throwing-knives and metal-splinters (very thin needle-like metal pins that are thrown at throats or veins) in her gear and secret compartments in her cowl.

It was mid-day and they were about to abandon their home for the past fifteen years and trek down to Redding to stay overnight with their friends the McLeods, then hitch a ride on a plane to Chicago, find his sister Venus DeMilo and they all go hitch another plane to New York, where they will finally kill Leonardo, and Karai who still bore the Oroku clan curse, and take down all of the Foot Clan.

Venus did not live with him – around the time they escaped to New Jersey they went their separate ways, Venus felt as if it would be safer to flee farther away, but Michaelangelo had been too stubborn to leave familiar territory. He and Moth had visited Venus in Chicago a few times (Venus had eked out a quiet day life of a newspaper editor, which she only really needed to correct grammar/spelling errors via the internet, and a not-so-quiet night life of playing vigilante much like her former mentor Nobody.)

Out of the corner of his eye of sharpening his throwing-knives, Michaelangelo saw Moth's head snap up, her amber eyes wide and he could almost swear the lifeless ears of her wolf-head-hood twitched. He had lived here in the forest for a long time, but the forest was all Moth knew; if anything was wrong with it, or if 'invaders' were nearby (Mostly other coyote packs, or black bears) than Moth could sense it.

"Something wrong, Moth?" Michaelangelo asked, he knew something was, he could sense it himself – aura, aura of the presence of others. Others who were not animals. They were humans, and a lot of them…. And a vaguely familiar aura that stood out among the other aura like a single tree in a field of grass.

And they were only a few miles down from them.

'_Shit_' Michaelangelo thought and clutched his nunchaku; he hadn't been in battle in years, the closest he had come were the occasional street fights he had when he went down to the Shasta/Tehama county areas for supply runs, or when he was sparring with his daughter. And Moth was inexperienced, how could either of them handle his enemy being here now?

"Moth," he called to his daughter, she hummed in acknowledgement "you sense it, right?"

"People." Moth said and bared her teeth "They are invading, heading towards us. Do we attack?"

"No." He answered hastily. Foreseeing her protests, he said "We have to leave, now!"

He threw the rugged backpack over his shell and grabbed his daughters arm to force her up and hurry her pace; soon they were running.

Under most circumstances, he would never run away; but his enemy was clever, there was no way he would just waltz up here unprepared. He had an army milled around him, and Michaelangelo knew the only way to kill Leonardo would be if it was one-on-one.

And he couldn't let Leonardo discover Moth – not just yet, not if the plan was going to work.

When they had ran a mile or so, Michaelangelo felt a sudden wave of new presences' closing in. He stopped abruptly, so did Moth who stared at him in confusion. "Hide." He ordered, plain and simple.

"But-" She protested, he cut her off.

"Now!" He commanded in a yell; Moth nodded and hid in the bushes, lying down for safe measure and peering through the barrier of leaves.

All of a sudden, scores of people in black appeared; Michaelangelo was still and his eye was transfixed on a single figure – the one that lead.

* * *

Moth let out a mental gasp when she saw who led the army of the black-garbed people; a leaf-green, mutant turtle wearing a battered red mask and a black cowl without the hood. Moth could see the thick scars lacing his face, neck, arms, legs and even his plastron. His hands were gloved in metal gauntlets, he also wore metal wrist/elbow and shin/knee guards. From behind his black cowl, she could see twin katana cross-strapped over his shell. Leonardo had a cruel grin and an evil look in his eyes

But it wasn't only her first glance at Leonardo that shocked her; at his side stood a near-identical turtle who was a much younger, unscarred spitting-image of Leonardo, except his eyes were green instead of light-brown. Not to mention he had a kusarigama strapped to the back of his shell, and a single katana strapped to the side of his waist. He had a rather apathetic, uncaring look of him; not a wicked look like Leonardo bore.

Her father kept a solid look even as his former brother spoke to him. "It has been a long time, Mikey." Leonardo said, his voice was feigning sweetness.

"Not long enough; the sight of you still makes me want to fucking puke." Master Michaelangelo snapped.

"Now, now Mikey," Leonardo said disapprovingly and wagged his finger at him "no need for language like that; you're starting to sound like Raph." When he saw the pained look in his younger brothers single blue eye, he mockingly asked "How is Raph, hmm? Or Donnie? Splinter? How are they, Mikey?"

"They're dead!" Miaster Michaelangelo yelled; rage hot as plasma in his single blue eye, frightening Moth "You killed them yourself, you bastard!" Then his eye finally fell upon the 'shorter' Leonardo at his former brothers side "Who's the brat?" He asked caustically.

"This is my son," Leonardo answered, not even looking at his son "Oroku Kai (**1**) – Karai is his mother." The boy, Kai, did not even blink even though he was the subject.

"Eww." Master Michaelangelo stated flatly, his eyes were as blank as his tone.

"But enough trivial conversation," Leonardo took a step foreword and drew out his katana "it is time for you to die." Leonardo had a surprised expression in his evil light brown eyes and scarred face when the other turtle started laughing hysterically – Moth herself was pretty surprised too. The evil turtle scowled "What is so funny, fool?" He demanded.

Michaelangelo stopped laughing and grinned his own evil-ish grin "You honestly think I'm going to stand by and let you kill me?" He chucked a bit "You really think I never changed? Leonardo, I am disappointed; I'm forty-five, not five. I've waited for this day, and saw this coming. You may have an army, but I have home-turf advantage"

Leonardo was silent when Michaelangelo added "I have this mountain rigged like fuck with booby-traps."

"Yeah right." Kai muttered; his tone was about as apathetic and empty as his expression; Moth wondered if he was actually a turtle-droid or something.

"Is that so?" Master Michaelangelo asked, nonchalant. He raised a three-fingered hand and snapped his fingers; on cue; the ground under Leonardo and Kai collapsed and they fell into a hidden pit under them.

Moth had to suppress a laugh – even though this was the mountain, Moth still had chores – although, her chores wasn't cleaning like most other people, her 'chores' consisted of setting up booby-traps her father thought up. Growing up, she found it rather annoying and unimportant, but now she felt as seeing _that _was well worth the several hours it took her to dig that hole. It was even funnier that in that pit, she dumped the entrails of the animals her and her father gutted, for they did not eat the insides of animals only the meat.

The second Leonardo and Kai fell into the deep pit, some of the ninja's jumped into the hold to help their leaders but succeeded only to get stuck in the hole themselves, whist the rest jumped at Master Michaelangelo instead.

Moth's amber eyes were wide with amazement as she watched her father in a real battle – in her eyes, her father was the greatest ninja in the world. She had only seen her father duke it our seriously one time in her life, but at _that _time she was slowly dying.

There was the snap of bones breaking and the crack of his nunchucks striking the Foot ninja. In one arm he was beating down Foot ninjas, and with the other he was pulling metal-splinters, kunai and shuriken from random hidden places along his garb and throwing them. He was also using kicks – he would alternate kicking one leg and standing on other, or even doing split-kicks.

Moth heard rustling from the bush she was hidden in and looked up to see a Foot ninja had discovered her.

"What the hell are you?" He asked, Moth responded by raising an arm and punching him with a clenched bear-paw gauntlet, the claws cut through the thick black full-face mask of the Foot ninja.

Moth dashed off. "Moth!" She heard her father call her, but she kept dashing away.

"Get it!" The Foot ninja with the hurt face yelled, and a faction of the Foot ninja squadron ran after her – but Moth still had what her father called 'home turf advantage'. She had lived in the forest pretty much her entire life – she knew just when to hop, skip and jump. She knew what the climb and how, she knew whether or not you hang on something, jump on something or jump over it. The Foot ninja were clueless. They struggled to keep up, getting hit repeatedly by branches and other foliage while Moth could effortlessly weave through it like the wind.

Already, she was near the cave of her coyotes – she needed the Foot ninja to believe she was some kind of demon-beast and not a human; they already believed that because of her cowl, leading a group of blade-wielding coyotes would intensify this image and throw them off even more.

When Moth was close to the entrance of the coyotes den, she turned back and saw the Foot ninja still following and then to the direction she was running.

Big mistake; for one thing, Moth should have just kept her eyes ahead, because turning her line of vision away from a rock-wall while she was _rushing _towards it at top speed proved to be a horrible mistake.

She crashed, face-first, against the rock wall, having missed the cave entrance by a few feet – she took a woozy step back before falling over onto her back, her vision blurring up and very twisty.

Moth was near unconscious when she saw the blurry shine of a sword right in front of her, and then her sight went black.

_She heard growling…_

* * *

It was night when Moth regained consciousness; she was looking at the dark sky with it's tiny points of light. And the moon was a quarter-full. Moth groaned; her head hurt like hell and she struggled to recall what had last happened.

What happened to father? And how was she alive, weren't the Foot ninja about to kill her?

Moth sat up and looked around; her eyes widened in horror and her breath caught in her throat.

Around her were strewn the bodies of her coyotes; all dead, and the bodies of Foot ninja, equally dead.

Now she figured what had happened; after the first Foot assault, she had taken the bonds off of her coyotes mouth since she would be trekking down to New York for what could be several months. However, her coyotes still saw her as alpha – and when she had returned and passed out, the coyotes had protected her like any other members of the pack – they killed the Foot ninja, but all died in the process.

Splinter was without his head, Savage was lying on the ground with a sword through her body, Song had one leg cut off and must have bled to death, Speed was covered in deep, extensive injuries and had a throwing knife in her throat….

She heard whimpering in the cave; preparing for the worst, she entered the dark cave.

Indeed she saw the worst.

Moths heart twisted when she saw Raphael whimpering and howling over bodies of Non-Fang, Jumper, and Hoot; but pups had been sliced across the throat by a knife, and Non-Fang had been cut vertically down the belly from chin to tail-tip, and her entrails pooled out of her cooled body.

Nearby lay the body of a Foot ninja that had been torn apart. She constructed the story; the Foot ninja decided to exact revenge on the coyotes by entering the cave and killing Non-Fang and her pups, Raphael saw this and killed the Foot ninja, and even ripped his body to shreds.

She often tried not to personify animals, but now it was pretty fucking hard not to; Raphael was whimpering and howling to his dead family, as if trying to call them back to the world of the living. The coyote was grieving.

Moth walked up to the coyote and sat next to him; she knew for sure he was deep in grief, for he did not snap his jaws at her. She patted him between the ears.

"I'm ready for war now." She told Raphael "And you need revenge."

Thus began a shaky, questionable alliance that could not be called a friendship, but more of a partnership based on the lust for revenge. They had finally found common ground; Leonardo had killed most of Moth's family (even if she had never met them, she still saw them as loved family member), and the Foot clan had taken all of Raphael's family. And they both were after blood.

The coyote could finally see Moth as alpha.

* * *

"That fool got away!" Leonardo roared to no one in particular as he angrily scrubbed away the gore he was still convinced covered his body, even though he had scrubbed his body clean over a dozen times. "He is going to die!"

Kai was silent; he was all too used of his fathers rather theatrical, melodramatic outbursts – he too had hated that he fell into a pit of rotting guts and gore; he had pretty much lost his sense of smell which would probably return after a week.

Personally, he did not care if his 'uncle' was dead or alive; having opinions was bad in this family. He followed orders without question, and he would continue to do so until his parents were dead and he was the head of the clan with his own children.

After his fathers piss-rant, Leonardo called his wife, also Kai's mother, Karai and told them they would stay another couple of days and hunt Michaelangelo down.

Kai had noticed how some of their ninja went missing – he figured they had followed Michaelangelo, who had fled, and were killed.

The fifteen-year-old wondered faintly why his father hated his own family so much; Kai had been raised to hate his entire life….

Yet he never found a reason to hate things. But he had to destroy the things his father hated; that was what he was for. So long as this was so, he would make himself an unfeeling stone, to shield himself from the reality that his parents would burn in hell and he was likely to roast in the fiery pits with them.

* * *

(1) _Kai means 'water', which references to Leonardo's mask being blue in many incarnations, his name is also similar to his mother, Karai._

* * *

_The whole bit about Moth couting severed heads... Remembered when I said she was **nuts? **Proof right there... Anyhow, this chapter took so long because I was at Frezno all weekend at a state wrestling tournament. Lotta fun, but real tireing ._

_Read and review for more..._


	5. From Sheltered to Shamed

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"_Are there things, about the universe, that will be forever beyond our grasp?_

_Are there things about the universe, that are, ungraspable? _

_One of the great revelations of space exploration, _

_Is the image of the Earth; finite and lonely._

_Bearing the entire human species, through the oceans of space and time."_

"Our place in the Cosmos" by Melodysheep.

* * *

"_I wonder if father is looking for me?" Moth asked out loud to Jade – her visits with Jade did not just happen on the Astral plan, Jade often appeared in her dreams._

"_Of course he is." Jade did not blink – then again, Moth can never recall a time when Jade did; in fact, Jade didn't even breathe. Must be a 'ghost' thing. "He is coming for you now, Moth."_

"_Really?" Moth asked, optimistic and threw her arms around Jade in a hug – Jade did not wrap her cold arms around Moth, in fact she did not react. She rarely ever did anything._

"_I wonder why Leonardo chose now to attack us." Moth pondered as she drew away from her ghost friend._

"_He has been spending the past twenty years searching for Venus DeMilo and Michaelangelo – it took that long to find that Michaelangelo lived in the mountains, near a county on the foothills in the middle of nowhere." Jade told her._

"_You know, I never asked; how is it you know everything you do? You help me, even though my father killed you…" Moth asked, shifting; the subject of Master Michaelangelo murdering Jade was a subject they never spoke about._

"_I hold grudges too." Jade answered cryptically, her green eyes did not waver._

_Moth frowned; she hated riddles. "That makes no sense." _

"_For now." Jade reminded. Before Moth could respond, she was pulled out of her dream._

* * *

"Moth? Moth! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Master Michaelangelo's voice asked her; Moth opened her eyes; she had fallen asleep, slumped against the coyotes cave wall after spending much time dragging their dead bodies and burying them under layers dead leaves.

Raphael was lying on one side of her with his heads in his paws, his furry body pressed against the side of her legs. Raphael looked at Michaelangelo and growled, froth bubbled out of his mouth.

"Quiet, Raphael." Moth reprimanded sleepily and grabbed his ear, shoving his head against the cave floor, causing the coyote to whine. She looked up to see her father crouching in front of her and shaking her.

"What?" Michaelangelo asked with a raised ridge and looked at the coyote that still glared at him.

"He reminded me of the way you described your brother."

"How so?"

"He reacts violently and irrationally to everything."

"Sounds about right." Master Michaelangelo shrugged, before getting serious again "Are you okay? I saw the bodies of Foot ninja outside, but you have a huge bruise on your forehead." She did? Oh well, probably from the impact of hitting the stone wall.

Moth explained to her father what happened after she separated; the Foot chasing her, her face hitting the wall, her coyotes saving her while she was unconscious at the expense of their lives…..

"How do you explain this one?" Michaelangelo asked her, pointing at Raphael; when the coyote tried to bite his finger, Moth again snapped his head down with a tug of his ear.

"He's the only survivor – his mate and pups were killed too." Moth replied – a sad look dawned on her.

"So he lost his pack, and his family? Poor guy." Master Michaelangelo said, his voice strained. Moth knew that saying that must have been like swallowing an entire bag of salt at once for him.

'_Like you…_' Moth thought sadly, to this day she wondered if her father was completely crushed by grief.

* * *

**Two days later….**

Violet McLeod was doing her homework; the girls head occasionally bopped to the way-too-loud music blasting into her ears through her earphones.

In the middle of a particularly horrid Algebra problem, she felt as if there were eyes on her, and that there was a breeze in her room – when you have typical-teenager Agoraphobia, you tend to notice things like that.

She took off her earphones and turned around.

Behind her stood a giant turtle and a person dressed like and coyote and a bear. Both of them were very dirty, and heavily scarred, and the person wearing the fur also had bones used to cap their elbow/knee sleeves and as shoulder pads for their cowl. Both of these creatures also had very dangerous weapons about them.

Violet blinked once, and blinked again before saying something.

"Oh, hello."

* * *

"Good to see you again, Mike." Fred McLeod said and shook Master Michaelangelo's hand.

"Indeed." Michaelangelo greeted back; a genuine smile on his face, that of which was something normally Moth only saw, normally whenever she'd accomplished something.

"Wow, dude; you've gotten pretty big." Fritz said to Moth "But you still smell as bad." Moth often thought of Fred as a non-depressed, human version of her father; he was pretty bi-polar himself; though he was a very intelligent man, he was serious sometimes, but for the majority of the time (well, whenever he was at home at least) he was exceedingly goofy and humorous. Moth knew from what her Aunt Venus told her that her father used to be a quite a joker himself, though most of the time it was very hard to believe.

"I do not smell bad." Moth defended and crossed her arms "I smell like the woods – you other humans smell like car exhaust, soap, and fast food." One thing Moth found very unbearable (More unbearable than having to fish in Whiskey-Town lake during the winter – and believe it, that is a very unpleasant task when you don't use a fishing rod, and there's more meth needles in Whiskey Town lake than actual fish.) was being around human places – even a small town like Shasta county. She couldn't stand the hard concrete, the harsh glare of the glass of buildings and steel of cars, and all of the artificial sounds coming from reverberating everywhere. If she had been raised as a normal human, it would be reverse; but unfortunately, she was raised in the mountains by a ninja turtle.

"How is your face now?" Fred asked seriously and pushed the hair away from the left side of Moth's face, where slash fissures of scar tissue marred the side of her face, razing away some of her hairline at the side, and going as far enough to even nick the corner of her ear and a little bit of her nose. Part of the scar covered her left eye as well, luckily not ruining her vision but making her eye a bit misshapen. "Does it bother you?"

"Only when I have to look at it, or get reminded of it." Moth growled and rudely brushed out of the room, where she went down the hallway and entered Violet's.

Shame covered the faces of both Michaelangelo and Fred. "I'm sorry I brought it up Mikey – I just wanted to make sure it didn't re-open or get infected." Fritz apologized; feeling like an idiot. He knew it had been a sensitive subject for Moth and Michaelangelo.

"It's alright Fred." Michaelangelo said and sat on the edge of the second bed in the master bedroom – the master bedroom had two queen-sized beds, one for Fred and his wife Mary, and the other for their toddler boys. One of their toddler boys, Jay the three-year-old, was sound asleep and hugging his favorite teddy bear. "You were just doing your job – you're a nurse, twenty-four-seven." Fred was indeed a nurse, and had been for the past five years. "It's my fault after all." Michaelangelo continued, a self-loathing look appeared in his eyes.

Fred frowned; he and Michaelangelo had had this conversation so many times, he knew it would be fruitless to convince his turtle friend that it wasn't his fault it had happened.

"Want a beer?" Fred asked, handing the Ninjitsu master a can of Bud-Light.

"Thanks." Michaelangelo said and opened the can, downing a big gulp of the cold, alcoholic beverage.

Michaelangelo had met Fred around the time he and Moth first settled into the Shasta mountains – this was back when Moth was five, and Fred only had one child (His eldest daughter, Marie, who was four at the time.). The then-small human family was camping in the mountains and Michaelangelo just happened to be patrolling around that night when a saw a bear had wondered into the McLeod's camp sight.

The bear was terrorizing the family and was about to attack Fred, when Michaelangelo jumped out to save them, he drove off the bear when he cut its ear off with his tomahawk (the same one his daughter now used). Fred, though a little shocked at first, was a man of honor and thanked Michaelangelo. One thing led to another, and the McLeod's become close family friends.

"You know Fred," Michaelangelo mused "I have faced armies of Foot ninja, I have stood bay as my own brother tries to murder me, I had to find a replacement for my sisters hand, I have traveled trans-continental by hitching rides on the back of trucks and having to find my way to places without a map… And I can honestly say that being a single parent to a girl is the hardest challenge I have ever faced."

"Amen, brother." Fred with a nod of his own.

Michaelangelo noticed a small portrait of what looked like a very small, elfish-looking baby in pink with her eyes closed. He pointed at it "Did you have another baby, Fred?" He asked.

A sad look appeared in Fred's eyes "No; that's the only picture of my grandchild, Melony. Marie had a miscarriage on the seventh month."

A pain as sharp as a metal-splinter stabbed into Michelangelo's heart, deep within his mind, a memory bubbled to the surface, a memory of a happier time, back at April and Casey's place….

* * *

"_I think it's going to be a girl, what do you think Mikey?"_

* * *

Michaelangelo shook his head; his memories could only torment him with what could have been, with what wasn't, and with what was. Present was truth, truth was reality, and reality was often too painful.

He sipped the cold froth bubbling up at the edge of the soda can "Hey Fred, can I have another beer? It's been a long trek down the mountain…"

* * *

Moth was sitting on Violet's bed and watching TV as said McLeod girl typed away at her Laptop; Moth knew that Violet was a writer. Moth futz around with the remote to see if she could change the channel; but she kept pressing the wrong button "Violet," she called "can you make the colorful ponies on the screen go away?"

Violet turned the TV off "You can come watch Youtube with me, if you want."

Although Moth did not know what 'Youtube' was, she thought it to be entertaining if the twelve-year-old thought it was, so Moth sat on the floor next to the stool Violet sat on as Violet brought up a different screen on her computer.

She clicked on a few things and her fingers flew over the keyboard so fast Moth wondered how the girl could do that without looking at it; but then again, this was a 'normal' human thing – maybe they had the letters on the keyboard as memorized as katas were to Moth.

A video came up – moving pictures of stars were on, and a deep voice using many words Moth did not understand began to speak out of nowhere.

"What are we watching?" Moth asked her young friend.

"Around the universe with Stephen Hawkings." Violet said, and her brown eyes grew bright "I find the space the most interesting thing – it seems like we know so much about it, but we actually barely know anything, everything we know could very well be wrong and change tomorrow…." Violet rambled on about stars, galaxies and matter, Moth tried hard to understand but she could not.

Moth actually did have an education – her father taught her basic Math (how to count, add, subtract, divide and multiply), the alphabet, how to read and write, a little bit of politics, some history and how to speak fluently in Japanese (which was the Hamato's clan's second language.). When it came to things like science and pretty much everything else academic, Moth was pretty damn clueless. But Moth knew that science and astronomy seemed to be this girls passion – anything really in-depth like law, religion, science or medical-science was, Violet had gotten in from her father Fred. Moth could honestly say that she liked to hang out with Violet more than her siblings because she wasn't as into technology as her family seemed to be. She had a cell phone that she didn't 'text' with, an outdated laptop, and a TV, but that was it.

When Violet was done with her lecture, she re-focused and Moth and asked "So uh, why did you guys come down here anyways?"

Moth paused, how was she going to explain that she would leave for a very long time? "We are going to leave for a very long time." Apparently, like that.

"Where are you going?"

"To get Aunt Venus DeMilo and go back to New York."

A shiver passed through Violet's body "Venus? You mean that creepy female turtle with a hook hand who spent Christmas with us a couple years back?" A couple years back, Michaelangelo and Moth had spent Christmas with the McLeod's, and Venus had come down like the did every Thanksgiving-New Years time of year.

"Hey, she is not creepy she's just…. Not talkative….And doesn't like to blink…. And meditates a lot…." Moth trailed off; even she had to admit, her Aunt Venus was just as well on her way towards senility as Master Michaelangelo was.

"When will you be back?" Violet asked.

"Not for a very long time." Moth admitted "We have much to do in New York."

Violet snorted "Figures; even a giant, talking turtle and a ninja girl would be kept busy by New York. Are you going to fight crime?" Her eyes lit up again, as they always did when she was captivated by something interesting. Moth knew Violet had a love for comic books.

"You can say that; we'll take down a really bad guy." Moth wasn't telling the entire truth, but she wasn't lying; her uncle Leonardo was evil; he had to be destroyed. Karai and Kai had to be destroyed so the curse would finally be destroyed like it was originally supposed to be. And until the Oroku clan was dead, and the Foot clan was no more, Moth could not truly become a Ninjitsu master.

"Who? A mobster? Terrorist?" Violet asked.

"My uncle."

The other girl was frozen, her jaw set in place and her eyes wide as the full moon "Your uncle?" She gasped "But you can't kill family!"

"Tell that to him." Moth replied bitterly, a smirk came to her face when she though of attaching strings to Leonardo's dead body, and using it as a bloody puppet, for a gorey puppet show with his bound Foot ninja as audience. Okay, so maybe she was just a little wacko…. Just a little bit.

"Look," Violet said "I don't like my uncle that much either – he cheated on my aunt. But It's wrong to ate family, you can't kill family."

"He is _not _family anymore." Moth growled "He's the enemy! You do not understand, you ignorant human!"

"You're a human too." Violet replied quietly "What did your uncle do that was so bad that you have to try to murder him?"

"Well…." Moth had the story of the Hamato's memorized; from Yoshi and the Ninja Tribunal, all the way to the death of the majority of the Hamato's and their allies. But it seemed too personal, this was between the remaining Hamato's; her, Master Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo. Their trageties weren't anyone elses businuess.

Why should anyone else know that family had killed family, and now the remaining family was trying to hunt down former family member while said former family member hunted them down in turn? Why should anyone else know the reason her father was missing an eye, and her aunt was missing her hand? Why should anyone else know that her two uncles died horrible deaths at the hand of their own brother? Why should anyone else know that her father had killed an infant because of who her parents were…..

A voice called to her, drawing her somewhat but not all the way out of her thoughts "Moth? Are you alright? You're blanking out dude."

Moth glared at Violet: this….. this _non-ninja _dared ask? Violet had no clue what the Hamato clan was about.

"Moth-?" Violet was cut off by her brief cry of pain as Moth punched her square in the face; Violet fell to the ground, blood spurting out of her nose and flowing out of her lip, knocked unconscious.

When the untimed, random but extreme flair of anger died down a second after Violet was down, Moth was back to her senses.

"Oh my god." Moth gasped and couched down; aside from being unconscious, her young friends bottom lip was split and her nose shattered. "What have I done?" Shame was a pall over Moths heart; with it was the coldness of guilt. Violet didn't deserve that….. She was just curious, Violet had always been a rather curious child – bombarding her, Master Michaelangelo, Fred and everyone else with constant, random questions.

Moth waved her currently un-gloved hand in front of Violet's face – the younger girl did not move. Trying hard not to panic, Moth lifted Violet up bridal-style and ran out of her room to Fred.

* * *

"I want that turtle and his…. His _savage, _out of here, and away from our children!" Mary McLeod screamed.

"Honey, I don't disagree with you that, but….."

"But nothing! I want them out!"

Moth winced from outside of the McLeod's bedroom – next to her stood her turtle father, his arms crossed and his single blue eye settled on her in a sharp glare. She blew it – yesterday, Fred had taken Violet to the hospital, where she was operated on to re-construct her nose – luckily, besides for the nose and slight head trauma, Violet was going to be fine. Not fine enough though, because Mary, being a _mother, _did not want a savage like Moth around her children around her. Shell, Fred was probably rather pissed with her too, if Moth had been born a boy Fred would have probably broken her nose too.

"Moth Hamato," Master Michaelangelo said to her in a dangerously low voice "I'm very disappointed in you."

Moth was silent – she didn't cry out in pain when his fist collided with the scarred side of her face, the blow was so hard she felt her cheekbones bruise and the scar tissue tear right back open. Her father was far from abusive, for he never beat her or anything – but at the same time, he was from a family of mostly-male ninja's, and he treated Moth exactly the same as if she were a son, because he believed a daughter should not be raised any different. So she was physically punished when her wrong action was beyond grounding.

Even as one who had gone through torrents of physical pain through life, that punch still hurt – mostly because she knew she damn well deserved it.

Moth picked herself back up, trickles of blood running out from the re-open scars on her face and down to her neck, even down to her collarbone.

"Let's go." Michaelangelo told her coldly, as he went down the hallway – it was night, and they would leave now, instead of in three days like they planned.

Moth followed – still silent, still deep in shame. And that shame intensified when they passed Violet's room, where the episode of '_Around the Universe with Stephen Hawkings_' would remain unwatched for a while.

* * *

"Sensei, I'm sorry." Were the first words that came out of Moth's mouth after three long, miserable days of shame-induced silence, silently feeling sorry for Violet and herself. Moth and Michaelangelo were currently in the back of a truck; yesterday, after much walking while staying hidden, they had finally gotten inside of a truck that was going straight to Chicago.

"I know." Master Michaelangelo grunted "But I'm not the one who you should be apologizing to." During the gamut of this trip, Master Michaelangelo had not once spoken to her unless if it was a order, it was obvious he was still upset with his daughter.

"I would apologize to Violet," Moth started and she hugged her knees "But she several hundred miles away."

"Don't get fresh." Michaelangelo reprimanded, and then looked at the watch under his wrist guard "We should be in Seattle soon."

"Do you think Venus DeMilo will be happy so see us?" Moth asked, trying to rev off of the past subject.

"As a clam." Michaelangelo nodded.

* * *

Venus DeMilo sighed as she clambered up the building to the abandoned water tower that served as her home.

If you asked her how her night was, she would punch you in the face and grab a beer – than, once she was calmed by the effects of alcohol she would tell you that her night _sucked. _Not only did her employer dock her pay earlier that day because she edited something wrong, but then she got in a heated argument with a Taxi driver because he was 'offended' by the black veil she wore over her face and he threw her ass out of Taxi cab, then she was chased by the police and their hounds for about an hour after a bystander called the cops on her when they saw her beat up the Taxi driver, then at night while patrolling she got shanked in the side and because she had to rush to the rooftops to stop the bleeding the gangsters got away with the loot. And to add to that, she had to scale up the side of a four-story building, which may not sound hard, unless if you factor in her missing hand.

With the stress of the day and night heavy in her shell, Venus DeMilo just wanted to get into her home, get inebriated as shell and go to sleep, where tomorrow would more-than-likely suck just as much.

Grumbling to herself (Venus did a lot of that – it happens when you're alone completely all of the time) Venus finally hoisted herself to the rooftop and walked over to the water tower and jumped up the wooden supports to the trapdoor-like bottom floor entrance, she popped it open and peered inside; her red-masked eyes narrowed, as one who can see in the darkness, she could clearly see the two inky shaped standing in her home – two human-looking shapes.

'_Great, looks like two bozo's have to 'fall off' the edge of the building – again. _' Venus DeMilo thought morbidly, without alerting the two shadows, she slipped inside and quietly closed the entrance again. Grabbing her trademark long-sword strapped to the back of her shell with her remaining hand, Venus quietly crept up on the shorter, stout shadow and grabbed their shouder, she heard a grunt of pain when she pushed one of her three fingers into a pressure point. She whirled this person behind, slammed them against the rounded wall and pressed the side of her long-sword against their throat.

Suddenly, the light of her lamp flicked on – the other shadow had done it – and Venus could clearly see the face of the intruder…. The green, scarred, one-eyed, red-masked face of the intruder….

Nervously, the 'intruder' chuckled "Uh, hi Venus, been a while right?"

* * *

_Yeah, Mikey and Venus drink - they are adults after all. I don't think alcohol is a bad thing - sure, being drunkard is bad, but they invented moderation for a reason. _

_This chapter wasn't exactly filler, there are some important points in this one._

_Read and review, tell me what you think so far, or give me some idea's if you have any._


	6. Drunken dark deals

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"_Frail! The skin is dry and pale, the pain will never fail!_

_And so we go back to the remedy..._

_Clip, those wings they get you high, just leave them where they lie,_

_And tell yourself you'll be the death of me."_

"Remedy" by Seether

* * *

"Geeze Mike," Venus DeMilo said as she drew herself and her blade away from her brother "Ever heard of calling first? I almost had your head."

"Sorry, it would have ruined the surprise." Michaelangelo shrugged – his sister slugged him in the shoulder with her good hand. "Drop the vodka." He commanded when he saw his daughter pick up a battle of Sake from a wooden crate propped up against Venus's splintery desk.

"Come on, it's been a long trip – just a couple of shots, please?" Moth begged – Michaelangelo sighed; in the Hamato clan, the 'legal' drinking age was eighteen, and Moth was twenty. On her eighteenth birthday, he had gotten her a bottle of vodka and expected her to hate the stuff like some women did. Unfortunately, not only could Moth handle her alcohol, but she liked it.

"It is alright." Venus said and took out a few shot cups from the drawers of the desk "I was about to have a couple jorums of skree myself. I wouldn't mind a carouse and you know, catch up over drinks."

Michaelangelo sighed again; that actually sounded pretty good right now, he needed time to unwind and let the stress of the past couple of days be washed down with the calming effects of alcohol. "Oh hell; why not?"

Venus overturned a three wooden crates for them to sit on and set them up in a triangular circle with a bottle of Sake, spice rum, and vodka along with a couple of Mountain Dews as 'shooters', each of them had a shot cup.

"Venus you are a life saver," Michaelangelo groaned and quickly downed some spice rum, and drank some soda from the green aluminum can "you have no idea how hard it is to get booze in the mountains when you aren't a moon-shiner."

Venus smirked "As much as I hate Chicago; the Liquor stores are still relatively easy to sneak into at night." The female turtle-ninja eyed Moth, who was still silent "You have grown much, girl." Venus told her "Are your scars bothering you?"

"They tore up again." Moth told her, amber eyes drooping – she would not tell Venus exactly how, though the female mutant was likely to figure Moth had gotten them in training.

"How unfortunate; here, I have a few herbs that will help heal them faster and stop infection." Venus reached for a wooden medicine box before Moth could protest; back before the Hamato clan fell apart, Venus was the doctor and herb-master of the family. The position would have been taken by Donatello, but he was more engineer than doctor; Venus DeMilo studied human medical science and learned about herbs from Master Splinter. It was almost sad how now a days she took more lives than she saved…..

Moth made a face when oddly scented salve was rubbed onto the raw-pink, scabby scar-tissue on her face. Actually, it seemed to make the earlier stinging go away.

"Thanks Aunt Venus." Moth thanked and poured herself another shot of sake "Hey, don't the Japanese drink sake from bowls?"

"Yes; but we aren't Asian pond sliders." Venus shrugged.

"Funny; _your _accent says otherwise." Michaelangelo mocked; Moth giggled and Venus made a face. For some strange reason, Venus always had a slight Chinese accent.

"Surfer." Venus mocked in return; Michaelangelo's face flushed bright green.

Moth was confused "Surfer?" She questioned her father with a raised brow.

"Don't ask." Michaelangelo said, rubbing the back of his head "Let's just say three of us had weird accents."

"Raph had a Brooklyn accent; and we were from Bronx!" Venus told her "It boggled even Master Splinter how only two of us talked normal."

"Did Donatello have an accent?" Moth asked, almost stupidly. Then again, it was likely the alcohol.

"No; I did." Michaelangelo admitted, the sake taking effect "Man, when I look back, I realize I was a huge moron."

"Yeah," Venus added "you and Raph would have raves every weekend and get really wasted."

Moth tried to image that; her father having raves and getting drunk every weekend in the sewers? But no, she couldn't, it just…. It wasn't like her sensei Master Michaelangelo to do anything foolish…. Or fun. He was just too serious for that kind of stuff.

"You know," Michaelangelo said to his sister "we came here because your bastard twin found us and ran us out of our own home…"

Moth, buzzed now, got off of the crate she stood on, and instead sat against the wall; her eyes staring drunkenly into space as her unfocused mind reflected on things she normally didn't reflect on.

_Home…_

* * *

"_Daddy, I'm cold…" Seven-year-old Moth said and battered the cold cloth her turtle father was trying to put on her forehead – she was freezing, why was he trying to make her more cold._

"_Moth; you're burning." Master Michaelangelo said worryingly, and put the cloth on her forehead again. _

"_Nu'uh c-cold…" Moth mumbled; she was so tired, but she couldn't sleep. Her eyes and nose were burning, she was coughing so bad her chest somehow felt itchy. _

"_Shhh…" Michaelangelo soothed and picked her up from her sleeping mat, she was feeling to bad to really wonder why "Just go to sleep, my daughter… Just close your eyes and go to sleep…"_

_She closed her eyes._

* * *

And she woke up; she was at a Mercy hospital in Shasta County; Fred was with her and told her she had come down with pneumonia, which was why her fever had been so bad. She was put on antibiotics and she, along with her father, stayed with the McLeod's for a couple weeks. She also had 'shots' which Fred told her would make her not get sick anymore.

But she had to wonder; how long was she out? She always wondered if her father had panicked over her bad fever and ran down the mountain as fast as his legs would carry him, and continue on even when he was tired.

She'd never minded that she was pretty much raised to be a weapon….. But at the same time, Moth never doubted once that her father didn't love her as if she was his own. She remembered, back when she was a toddler back at the Orphanage, he would visit her at night while everyone else was asleep; give her piggy-back rides on his shell, carry her around Jersey for a couple hours to show her how big the world really was outside of the Orphanage. Out of all of the other poor waifs, he chose _her, _even over the boys.

She often wondered why Venus had not adopted any children herself… Venus seemed to love them. The mutant kunoichi was always nice to her when she was little, and caring as well. Venus would have made a great mother and sensei….

Maybe….. Maybe after having lost so much, all Venus knew was hate. She couldn't let anyone else into her heart, because of her fear of losing them and being crushed all over again. Moth knew her sensei was like that; that was why he was so over-protective of her, that was why he made her train so hard; so that she may protect herself and not get killed. That was why he killed the bear….

A long time ago, when Moth was ten, her father had found that all of the fish they had caught was stolen by a black bear, which made him furious. And over-time the bear continued to steal their food, which was dangerous during autumn because that was the time of year they had to store food for winter.

Being a stupid ten-year-old at the time, Moth thought she could impress her father by trapping the bear and killing it.

On her part, it was a stupid idea.

She did manage to catch it, and she used her tomahawk to try to get it's head off. Too bad at the moment she hadn't realized that the fur-and-skin of bears is very thick, and can't be broken through very easily. Because she was only a little girl at the time, she didn't have much strength anyways so hacking at the bears neck only managed to piss it off.

It broke free of the trap and mauled her.

She was thrown at a tree by it's powerful paws and it slashed her face – which was why one side of her face was as scarred as it was. She had been screaming loudly as it attacked her, and if she hadn't been screaming she would have died, because Michaelangelo heard her screams and rescued her.

The bear was driven off, but the damage was done; one half of her face was practically torn off, both of her legs were broken, her arm was broken, her ribs were shattered and her collarbone was broken. And not to mention she was covered in deep claw-gashes.

Michaelangelo had panicked – he took her back to the cave, did a poor first aid job of stitching together her gashes and covering her in bandages before he rushed down the side of the mountain; Moth was unconscious the entire time, dangerously close to death.

She woke up in the hospital, and she had been a total mess – with braces, bandages and tubes and machines, even a breathing mask. It was night and her father was at her bedside at the time, having snuck inside.

Moth had only seen her father cry once – that was that time. He was crying his eyes out and holding her much smaller hand in his, apologizing over and over, and swearing up and down that he would not let the bear walk away to lick it's wounds. Moth remembered being so puzzled over his tears, but not being able to say anything because it was so painful to do so.

She spent months recovering with the McLeod's, and coming back home with her arm in a cast, her legs with braces and crutches, and her chest and collarbone being in some kind of a body-brace. The day she came home, Michaelangelo gave her a present – a cape, gauntlets and boots; all made skinned off the bear itself. She didn't ask how he killed it. And even if those things were too big for her back then, she still wore them – they made her feel proud, for she had lived past a bear assault, and wearing the bears fur made her feel less afraid….

But her father was guilt-ridden, believing that it was his fault because she tried to kill the bear to impress him and show she was a good ninja. So guilty was he, that even when she healed he insisted she didn't train; she studied and meditated, but that was all. It took until about two months after she completely recovered for her to convince him to train her again. Still, even to this day, ten years after the accident, he believed it was his fault, and he would probably go to the grave with it.

She knew he had always struggled being a parent….. He was a first-time father, with no partner to help him…. He didn't know the rules t being a parent… He really had no clue…

* * *

Michaelangelo looked back when he saw his daughter sitting propped against the wall, twitching in her sleep…. She must have dozed off.. "S'not…. Y… fault…" She mumbled "Di..nt…. Know…" She mumbled.

"Wondering what she's thinking, brother?" Venus asked; she was more inquiring than questioning.

"Yeah," Michaelangelo admitted "Venus… Sometimes I think I made too many mistakes."

"We all make too many mistakes; it comes with life." Venus shrugged "Why regret things? You can't change the way things are."

"What do you regret?" Michaelangelo asked.

Venus was still for a moment, and she seemed to be somewhere else for a moment before she answered "I wouldn't have let Leonardo trick me." She answered honestly "If I hadn't fallen for his false words at the battle, I would still have my hand." She put her hand and stump wrist in front of her, staring at her remaining hand and the metal cap over the stump.

Michaelangelo frowned "Venus; he did wrong, not you." He assured "You trusted your own brother – and he broke that trust."

"Why has he become so evil?" Venus asked miserably "Leonardo was once the most honorable turtle I knew, with a truly good heart – sure, he was kind of an ass sometimes, but I don't think there's anyone who isn't once and a while. And then he just kills us all!"

"The Foot clans wickedness probably rubbed off on him…." Michaelangelo growled lowly, his single blue eyes were aflame with the bitter hatred he had "But Venus…. It's time… The Foot clan and their Oroku overlords must be destroyed."

Venus looked him right in the eye, her own eyes were dangerous "Give me a clear date, and I'll kill each and every one those sons of bitches with my own bare _hand_."

* * *

Moth lay on a carpet in Venus DeMilo's 'home' as Venus and Master Michaelangelo talked about traveling arrangements; they would stay and relax here for a few days as Venus gets all of her stuff in order, than they would head to New York and find a place in the sewers to live since living 'topside' would be dangerous.

Moth liked lying on the carpet; having slept on a mat on a cold cave floor her entire life, she had rarely ever used an actual bed and something as trivial as a carpet could be comfortable to her. And she was really warming up to the war idea if it meant she wouldn't have to train as much.

Out of the corner of her eye, Moth saw a framed, dusty picture propped face-down on the floor. Curious, Moth reached for it and picked it up. She wiped the dust off and studied the picture; five mutant turtles with red masks and black cowls, a mutant rat standing between them, and two humans; one female with red hair and green eyes, and the other male with black hair and blue eyes. They were all posing for their picture.

"Hey, Father, Venus, look what I found." Moth said and pointed at it; the two siblings saw the picture and made somewhat of a grim smile.

"That was taken when we were seventeen years old." Master Michaelangelo told her. Moth studied the picture close; each of the turtles had a different skin tone: sage-green, two leaf-green, emerald green and olive green.

"This is you, right?" Moth asked and pointed at the turtle with a serious look on his face.

"No," Venus interjected when she saw her brother tense up "that is Leonardo." She said.

Moth's expression dropped and she looked at her father again; his skin was sage-green. She looked at the sage-green turtle in the picture and saw he had a cheerful look on his face, wide eyes, a bright smile and he held up a peace sign with his fingers.

"Whoa," Moth muttered under her breath and looked at Master Michaelangelo again; his expression was hard, his single eye was hard and cold like steel, and his mouth was pulled into an emotionless frown. Moth realized something;

Grief really did crush him completely. There was silence for a while, for no one knew what to say.

"Moth," Master Michaelangelo called to her and broke the silence, Moth got up on command.

"Yes, sensei?" Moth asked politely.

"Here's some money," her turtle father said as he handed her a few bills "go pick up some food we can use on our journey."

Moth nodded and began to head out, but her father stopped her "You can't go out looking like that – for Christ sake, you look like an Indian, take off your cloak and put mine on." He took his off and threw his black cloak to her.

Moth made a face and shed her fur cloak before putting on her fathers black one and putting the hood on to hide her ragged hair. Humans often judged those by appearance; and truthfully, Moth looked like a blood-thirsty savage. She also had to take off her bear gauntlets, but luckily she could keep the boots off since many human women wore fur boots. She was sure to hide her scimitar under the cloak by using a cross sheath over her back; she hated the cross-sheath, it made her think of Leonardo.

With the cloak concealing her body and deer-fur clothes, and kept the hood on so no one could see her ragged hair.

"Don't get jumped." Venus called after her.

"If I do, I'll come home with a couple heads to mount on the wall." Moth called back and she left – truth to be told, Venus was somewhat thinking that her niece was serious. When the hatch was closed, Venus saw her brother holding the picture frame with a pained, stricken expression as he stared down at the image taken many years ago.

"We were all so happy then," Michaelangelo told her in a small voice, it made Venus's heart ache, it reminded her of when he was sad when they were little "and Master Splinter and our brothers were alive, and Leonardo wasn't evil, and April and Casey didn't hate us…."

"They do not hate us," Venus tried to convince him "they were grieving parents – how would you feel if Casey's brother Sid murdered _your_ daughter?"

"I'd blame only the guilty party, and kill him." Michaelangelo responded.

"You don't know that." Venus crossed her arms best she could with a single hand.

It was true, Michaealangelo realized; who knew how he'd feel if he lost one of the few family he had, he could honestly say that he'd be devastated. He had been devastated so many times before; would it drive him insane? He couldn't answer it.

"Venus," Michaelangelo wondered aloud "how come you never came to live with me and Moth?" They were family; they were supposed to stick together. And though he told Moth that it was because two turtles together would draw more attention, it was not the real reason.

"Because of Moth." Venus admitted, as she had many times before.

* * *

"I hate cities." Moth mused to herself, continuing through crowds of people and apologizing to those she ran/bumped into. Another thing she hated; other humans. Even if she was raised in a _cave, _in the _forest, _on the top of a _mountain, _by a mutant _turtle; _she still knew her manners. These people were rude and glared at her for running in to them and didn't ever apologize.

'_They would probably hit me with a car, and then yell at me for getting blood on the paint job.' _Moth thought crossly.

"_Gomen." (__**1**__) _She said to a woman she bumped into; the blond woman only sent her a glare laced with some puzzlement before rudely brushing past her, purposely bumping her in the process. "Watashi wa shazai! (**2**)" Moth called back, somewhat offended by the display of rudeness.

"Rude people." Moth scoffed quietly and read the signs; if she was correct, than a store with food would be a grocery store, but she kept passing places that sold clothes and she was continually passing a place called _'McDonalds' _which reeked of something she didn't like one bit.

After about half an hour of desperate searching, Moth rested her forehead in her palm and groaned, having come up with nothing. She sat plopped on a curb in front of an alley.

"I hate cities…" She muttered.

"They ain't real bad." Someone said behind her – she turned and saw a woman with a tired face and messy blonde hair, her clothes were very revealing. "I got a lot workin' 'round here."

Moth forced herself to not correct the womans grammar "Really? What do you do for a living?"

"I work the corners." The womans said and sat next to her "Our boss works our asses 'till it hurts to shit."

Moth smiled; this woman had a sense of humor. "Hmm… I'm interested in hearing about this work you do, may I meet your boss?"

The woman nodded "Yeah, you can; follow me, Little Snowbird will probably be in his usual hang-out."

'_What a strange name for a boss._' Moth thought as she followed the woman, intent on finding out what 'working the corners' meant.

* * *

"Ready to go, sis?" Michaelangelo asked; he and Venus were outside of Venus's 'home' standing on opposite sides of the rooftop; Michaelangelo had had both of his nunchaku in hands, and Venus held the handle of her longsword with her hand.

"It's been too long," Venus said smoothly "since we sparred – I kicked your sorry shell."

Michaelangelo chuckled "I think you've got it wrong, Venus; _I _kicked _your _sorry shell."

"Yeah right." Venus said with a gleam in her eyes "Bring it on Mikey."

They bowed.

Then they stanced.

Then they circled.

And then they charged.

Their weapons clashed and their fists were out; Venus was at somewhat of a disadvantage because of her missing hand, but she made up for it with ferociousness. No one would want to face with Venus – due to her missing hand, she had trained relentlessly to learn how to fight without it, and it anyone was on her gimp side then they would be flanked. Her movements were fast, and whenever she fought, even in a simple spar like this, you could tell she was pissed off.

Michaelangelo clubbed at her with his nunchaku and elbowed her, but she flashed his arm away from her with her wrist and punched him.

Kicking, punching, striking. A flurry of attacks and neither of them were let up – both of them were still in pretty good shape, Venus still training and had had regular practice being a vigilante, and Michaelangelo trained so much because he trained Moth.

Michaelangelo had speed, Venus had skill – that was one thing she and Leonardo always shared, they were both naturally gifted ninja's, except Venus did not have the same leadership skills that Leonardo had, that was where the differences struck.

"Huh, you've gotten rusty; but hey, maybe it's just your old bones!" Michaelangelo taunted – only to get an uppercut.

"You are the same age as me!" Venus retorted and did a front-kick, but Michaelangelo grabbed her leg and flung her.

"Yeah, but I was always the baby of the family." Michaelangelo held his hand out "Draw?" He asked with a raised ridge.

From the ground Venus grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the ground and he fell hard onto his plastron "Draw." Venus agreed; Michaelangelo punched her half-playfully on the shoulder.

Suddenly, Moth came back to the top of the building; grocery bags in one hand, and what looked like a feathery hat in the other.

She dropped the groceries in front of them and handed Michaelangelo the hat – a pimp hat with a dismembered head still in it.

Moth angrily stalked back to the water tower.

Michaelangelo asked "What hap-?"

Moth vut him off "I don't wanna talk about it!"

When the latch slammed shut, Venus smirked "Nice daughter you raised, Mikey." She said.

"Shut up."

* * *

_This was... definately filler. So Venus finally appears, and she will be a regularlly recurring character._

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	7. Arrival

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"They searched every single inch of that mountain, combed every tree, left no stone unturned…." Leonardo explained to his wife "And yet Michaelangelo was gone, meaning he had left. Where to, we are not sure, but we will follow his trail."

"You had checked his lair as well, correct?" Karai asked.

Leonardo nodded "Yes but… We found evidence that he had not been living alone; his home had been sustaining two for years. And my ninja have told me of a fierce creature with equally fierce, traditional Ninjitsu skills."

"Creature?" Karai inquired, putting a glass of wine to her lips.

"Yes. And I had done some research, there have been numerous sightings over the past decade of a creature with a description matching the creature our Foot soldiers had seen." Leonardo produced a newspaper; there was a story and he highlighted the part that he wanted Karai to read.

**the hitch-hikers explain their mysterious rescuer as a creature with 'head of wolf' 'body of bear' and 'face and rack of human woman', they swear it wielded swords. This is the fifth sighting this year**

"How old is this article?" Karai questioned.

"A few months."

"How many recorded sightings?"

"About twenty-seven."

"Do you think it is another mutant?" Karai asked – she knew that it was unlikely that the mutagen that Leonardo and the rest of his family were exposed to had affected them only; if Michaelangelo had obtained more of it…..

"If it is, it is most likely female the way it is described; some have reported that the creature talked to them, they say it either had a female voice, or a scratchy one. But it was capable of speaking and understanding English."

"Are you completely sure this is the same creature that had been living with Michaelangelo?"

"It'd be near impossible if it wasn't – in some sightings it was reported to have been seen with a 'giant turtle'."

Karai pondered – a second mutant? What if, for the past twenty years, Michaelangelo had been raising a savage mutant in the ways of Ninjitsu? One of the turtles was hard enough to deal with, two near impossible, but teamed with a creature as vicious as the Foot ninja had explained?

"If Michaelangelo left the mountain, he's likely to return to New York with Venus DeMilo," Karai rationalized "and in twenty years, it would be foolish to assumed they have not sharpened and polished their skills."

"And what do you assume we do?" Leonardo insinuated, his light brown eyes on his wife.

"Our son will take place as an Elite guard, alongside you." Said Oroku Karai, the Shredder "You both will go to the streets and collect recruits to be Foot ninja."

Oroku Leonardo grinned madly "How I love your evil mind, darling." He purred.

"And I, you, Leonardo."

The door was open a crack, and unbeknownst to them, Kai had been listening for a while; hearing his parents mushy talk, he gagged and stuck his tongue out in disgust.

The part about finally being an Elite Guard, though, he was glad to hear.

* * *

"Now I remember why I hate traveling!" Venus DeMilo growled.

"Shut your trap and stop moving!" Michaelangelo hissed and elbowed her hard in the ribs, earning him a smack upside the head from his sibling.

"It'd be nice if your shells weren't squishing me!" Moth complained to them both, only to let out an 'oof!' when there was a bump in the road and she was wedged more between their shells and the wall of the crate.

To get to New York on a one-way road, they decided to hitch a ride of a train – however, to do that and ensure that they wouldn't be seen, they had to cram themselves into a stuffy, straw-filled crate which became even more crammed and stuffy when all three of them stowed into it. Moth wouldn't be surprised if she came out of this crate with claustrophobia.

"I can barely breathe in here!" Moth whined when they finally positioned themselves in the least uncomfortable way possible inside of a stuffy crate.

"Then conserve your air." Michaelangelo said and set himself in lotus position "Rest your mind, my child." He commanded and waited for her to get into lotus position "For the rest of the way, we'll be in a Chi Kung session. Lack of oxygen won't be an issue. Now close your eyes, and breath slowly…."

Venus DeMilo was already deep in her session, after all out of her siblings she had always been the most spiritual. Moth closed her eyes and lightened her breathing, and soon she too was deep in a Chi Kung session.

* * *

"_We're going to New York Jayde." Moth told her friend as soon as she appeared in the astral plain; her phantom of a best friend was silent, she never did speak until Moth said fully what she meant "Finally, I can avenge my family and kill Leonardo once-and-for-all. Order will be restored and the dead can rest easy. Finally, the weight on my fathers shoulders can be lifted."_

"_As can the one on yours." Jayde responded._

_Moth was somewhat baffled "What are you talking about? I carry no burden on my shoulders."_

"_Or so you've convinced yourself._" _Jayde interjected with a flash in her green eyes "Face it, Moth; your whole life you've been trained to kill. Your enemies are the enemies of your clan and this war started before you were born. You were brought into this family as a weapon in a mission and it is very possible you can die as just that, a weapon."_

"_I'm my fathers daughter, not a weapon." Moth argued; one downside to having an ghost as a best friend, is that they always have a clairvoyant infinite knowledge about you. Although Moth would never admit it, she always had an insecurity about being a 'tool'. She knew her father loved her, but sometimes she couldn't help but doubt whether or not he saw her as a daughter or a weapon for him to destroy his enemies with. As mighty a warrior as Michaelangelo was, he wasn't as young or able-bodied as he used to be. So he saw that the only way to defeat Leonardo was to mix wisdom and experience with youth and ability. _

"_But the reason for your lack of sanity aside," Jayde continued "when you arrive in New York, the Foot clan will be recruiting – Michaelangelo departure has lead for Leonardo and the Shredder to believe that Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo are returning to New York. As a result, they are recruiting, so your plan will go smoothly. And when the Foot ninja saw you, they actually did believe you to be a creature, and Leonardo believes you are a mutant like your father. He will not suspect you as a human."_

_Moth frowned "Hey Jayde, I gotta ask you," Moth asked "not that I don't like you fighting the good fight, but why **are** you on our side? I mean, the Shredder is your **mother!**"_

"_Hush," Jayde said "our visit is over; relax your mind for the rest of the journey…" _

_Before Moth could argue, Jayde disappeared and Moth was left alone in the Astral Plain._

_Moth made a face and took out her swords – she found it strange that in the Astral Plain she still had her all of her gear, weapons and everything else she carried on her. "Whatever," she said and practiced her kata's and moves for her remaining time in the Astral Plain._

* * *

Venus DeMilo opened her eyes when she sensed that they were in New York; it was either her uncanny spiritual abilities, or just her own intuition from having lived in New York for more than half of her life. She glanced at Michaelangelo and his demon child and pushed the lid off of the crate. She shook the stiffness from her body and walked around the section of the crate; the door of the train-car was open a crack and she could already smell the polluted salt water of the Manhattan river.

Already, their time was starting; the sun was setting and the night was closing in, giving them, as creatures of the dark and ninjas, the comforting pall of darkness to lurk around almost freely.

Venus DeMilo returned to the crate and shook the two other members of her clan awake "Wake up." She said "We are here. We are finally home."

"Five more minutes…" Moth groaned sleepily – only to be punched softly in the shoulder by her father.

"Wake up Moth; we have been resting for days." Michaelangelo scolded, both of them rose from the crate, shook themselves to regain feeling in their bodies.

"I'm up, I'm up." Moth mumbled.

Venus DeMilo leads them to the door and pointed to the darkened city of New York.

"New York, New York." Michaelangelo said "The place I never thought I would return to."

Moth blinked and rubbed her eyes "The big apple." She said in awe, mesmerized by the bright lights and immense size, even from her point of view in the mountains, the counties in the Foot hills that she overlooked were not near this size.

A craze grin filled out her face "I can't wait to paint this place in blood."

Venus DeMilo glared at Michaelangelo in amusement, he put his hands up in front of him. "I have no idea what went wrong with her." He excused.

* * *

**Trying to focus on the whole 'Moth is nutso' thing.**

**Read and review**


	8. Benign, Bellicose and fevers

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"What is this place?" Moth asked as Michaelangelo lead her in a sneak into a strange place – there were headstones poking out of the ground, and there were flowers in front of them. She knew about places like this, but she couldn't quite place the name….

"A graveyard." Master Michaelangelo replied and bailed over the concrete fence, Moth quickly followed suit.

Moth felt her throat go suddenly dry "To…. Visit?" She asked with a gulp; he nodded bleakly and led her to a few headstones.

It was night – they had spent the whole day looking for a lair under the sewers, and gathering supplies, Michaelangelo and Venus agreed to stay away from O'Neil tech, which they explained was run by their former ally April. Finally, they settled on an abandoned water treatment plant near central park. Venus DeMilo was currently cleaning the place up; Michaelangelo proposed she come with them, but she blatantly refused. Maybe, for her, it was too painful.

Michaelangelo came to the first grave – with date of birth and death, was the heading **Hamato Yoshi. **Michaelangelo bowed respectfully to the grave for a moment, and as did Moth. Bt he had nothing to say, which was expected because the only time he had actually known Master Yoshi was when he was a baby, un-mutated pond-slider.

The next grave was right next to Yoshi's, and even though it was old it was newer than Yoshi's still. On it was written **Hamato Splinter****, **along with the words of _A honorable ninja, father, and sensei. _This time, Michaelangelo fell to his knees when he bowed, Moth stayed on her feet though.

"Master," Michaelangelo said; Moth looked to the ground when she heard the sadness in his voice "I know it has been a long time since the last time I visited you – fifteen years, I think. But I'll avenge you and my brothers as well – I can never be as great a teacher as you, but I have taken on a student of my own. I believe you would be proud of your grandchild." Moth smiled faintly hearing that, faintly she wondered how life would be if Leonardo didn't go evil and fall in love with Karai the queen-of-evil.

The next grave was the nearest – strangely, it had only a first name. **Angel, and baby **and judging from her date of birth and death, she had only been eighteen when she died, even more she must have been pregnant.

"Who's that?" Moth asked her father quizzically; she raked her brain trying to think of anyone with the name that Master Michaelangelo mentioned in stories, but she knew the story of her clan from top-to-bottom and the name didn't come up.

"Remember when I said that Leonardo killed a street girl, because she was my friend?" Michaelangelo reminded bitterly, Moth flinched at how unexpectedly harsh his tone was.

"Who was the father of her baby?" Moth asked.

"No one knew." Michaelangelo sighed "That was Angel, keeping secrets….." His voice was chocked up with a lot of emotion, and now Moth could fully understand why Venus DeMilo chose not to come, she never even physically knew these people and yet she was starting to feel terrible.

Not able to stomach much more, Moth walked away to explore more of the graveyard – she read some of the headstones; some people that died to soon, some people that must have lived happy lives for a long time, some that lived terribly, some old and some new. For each grave Moth saw, she began to feel terrified.

Moth put a hand on a gravestone for leverage; her face was pale '_I really could die, couldn't I?_' She thought grimly, she never really thought about it, normally she didn't mind the idea of being killed in battle, but now that she saw these gravestones….. She shook her head, dying with honor was by no means a bad thing, and it was not really living if one lived in fear….

"Miss?" Someone behind her said; not expecting it, the ninja girl immediately unsheathed her scimitar, swiveled around and brandished her sword.

Standing behind her was a middle aged man – he was wearing a strange red velvet robe with the large hood over his head, though Moth could tell that he was bald, and his eyes were brown and kindly.

"Back off, human!" She growled and tightened the grip on her sword, the old man smiled.

"Lower your sword, girl. I am not an enemy." He assured, though Moth did not let her guard down. "Trust me, I am only a lowly crypt-keeper, my brother and I."

Moth sheathed her sword "State your business." She said gruffly. To her dismay, he chuckled slightly.

"No need to keep your ninja armor here, my intensions are good."

Moth was baffled "H-How did you….?" She trailed off; how could this mysterious crypt-keeper tell she was a ninja? She didn't wear customary or traditional ninja garb – and her swords weren't even Japanese either, they were _Arabian. _The stance she had just been in was common in many martial arts….

"Come along, it cold out here." The crypt-keeper said and walked foreword, he stopped and turned back "Are you coming?"

Confused, Moth still followed – the old man led her to a small crypt and he opened the stone door where there were stone stairs leading to, possibly, a small chamber underground. The old man started down the steps and Moth followed, careful to hold the handle of her sheathed sword in hand in case if there was any funny business.

The underground crypt-room as far bigger and more moderate than Moth first thought – it was rather big, and even though it had no windows there was plenty of lighting, and she saw a couple doors meaning there were other rooms (this place must have been some kind of underground bunker…) There was a TV, a couple of computers, desks, a large bookshelf, a kitchenette, a few couches and a coffee table.

"Whoa," Moth said "this is something straight out of Minecraft." Even though she was raised in the woods, there were still the times that she was with the McLeod's; and if there was anything valuable that Violet's brother ever taught her, it was how to play Minecraft. God, she had been so addicted to that game that whenever the McLeod children came to the computer and asked to play, she took out her scimitar and told them that if they didn't go away and a creeper blew her up, than she would shred them for bedding. Needless to say, Master Michaelangelo banned her from ever using the computer again after an innocent pillow fell victim to her Creeper-explosion based rage…..

"Bellicose!" The man called; one of the doors to the other rooms immediately slammed open and another man stood there – he was an almost exact facsimile to the first guy, in fact he even sported the same red velvet robe, except his hood was down, though his had was still bald, and his eyes were yellow instead of brown.

"Holy similar." Moth said and looked back and forth between the brothers "Are you guys twins?"

"You can say that." Grumbled the yellow-eyed one; his voice was noticeably more gruff.

"This is my brother Bellicose." The first man introduced "My name is Benign."

'_Weird names_' Moth thought.

"Don't think our names are weird." Bellicose growled, Moth tensed up.

'_Can he read my mind!_' Moth thought.

"Yes, I can read your mind." Bellicose snorted with a half-evil grin.

'_Shit shit shit!_'

"And swearing doesn't help."

"Don't mind him." Benign assured "He's just messing around."

Moth regained composure hearing that "Next time he wants to joke around, he better be ready to improv with my swords." She growled.

"Funny." Bellicose snorted, clearly unaffected by her threat.

"Sit, sit, both of you." Benign said and jostled them both over to the couch to sit down "Tell me, girl; what is your name?"

"Hamato Moth." She replied – she was not sure why, but she felt as though she could trust these two; both of them looked at each other and nodded, having had a conversation with only eye-contact.

"You are related to that Yoshi chap and his other family, correct?" Benign asked. Moth tensed up uncomfortably. Yoshi was her family, by default; Splinter has seen the deceased ninja as a father and took his last name, but what was Yoshi to her?

"He was my great-grandfather." Moth answered "Splinter was my grandfather, Raphael and Donatello were my uncles."

"It was strange how their death dates were so close." Bellicose commented "What got them, a sickness?"

"Y-Yes." Moth answered; she could never tell them what really happened, it was her clans business.

"Your father certainly takes a long time when it comes to talking to headstones." Bellicose said, out of nowhere; Moth's jaw dropped; they saw…? And knew….?

"I have no idea what your taking about." Moth stated indignantly.

"Save it," Bellicose cut "the giant turtle is your father, don't try hiding it."

Moth sighed in defeat, her shoulders slumped "How could you tell?" She asked. "It's not like I have green skin or a shell."

"We have our ways." Benign answered.

"You're not freaked out?" Moth was confused "It's not like you see mutant turtles every day."

"When you've been through what we have, nothing is surprising." Benign answered sadly "Wait here, I have something to give you." Bening retreated to another room and quickly returned with a wooden box, which he shoved into Moth's hands. "Now, you must go, your dad should be done by now."

Before Moth could full comprehend what was going on, she was hoisted back onto her feet and was pushed out of the room, and up the stairs until she was rudely shoved back outside.

"Give that to Venus DeMilo." Benign instructed, than a smile played on his face again "Oh, and be sure to visit!" He closed to door, leaving a stunned Moth.

"W… Wait!" Moth exclaimed when she fully registered what he had just said. With questions racing through her head, she swung the stone door open.

Her amber eyes twitched; when the door opened, the stairs leading to the underground bunker was gone, instead, there was just an empty room, like the small crypt was just a shed-like.

"Maybe I am insane." Moth said to herself, then she looked at her hands and saw she still had the wooden box; her face paled.

"Moth?" She heard her father say from behind her, but she was rooted on the spot. She was turned around to face Michaelangelo "Are you alright?" Her father asked, concern in his single blue eye behind his red mask "You look like you just saw ghost."

"I think I just did." Moth answered before passing out.

* * *

"Is she alright?" Michaelangelo asked his sister, he was clearly panicked. He and Venus DeMilo were the center of their new lair, and Moth, who was still unconscious, was lying on a long crate that they found and was the only thing that could serve as a cot.

"Nothing to worry about, Mike." Venus assured and put a wet cloth on Moths forehead "It's only a mild fever – but that's what stress does. With your home being attacked, you two being driven out of California and traveling cross-country all the way back to New York bring is a decent amount of stress on someone young." She explained, then added "Oh – and stop panicking! I know your worried about… you know… But the fever is slight."

"Last time I thought her fever was slight, she almost died." Michaelangelo muttered bitterly .

He was smacked upside the head. Wide-eyed, he looked at Venus DeMilo with surprise. "Times like this I really wish Raph was here – to remind you to stop being a bonehead!" Venus DeMilo said and rolled her eyes "Some down time, a lot of water, and a few herbs will do the trick, trust me Mikey. You used to get fevers all the time when we were little, and you drove Sensei insane with your deluded rambling and delusions."

Michaelanglo crossed his arms "I'm telling you, that flute-playing zombie was real."

"Yeah," Venus snorted "and it definitely polka-danced with Oprah in the sewer tunnels to the lovely musical styling of Brittany Spears."

"They had a great jazz hands routine." Michaelangelo said with a grin.

Venus DeMilo smirked "So the turtle with ice-water in his veins can actually joke?" She teased, her brother pouted.

"Shut up."

"If I did, I wouldn't be doing my job, now would I?"

"And what would your job be?"

"Annoying you."

"You suck."

"All in the memo." Venus DeMilo commented, then got serious again "But can you explain this?" She pointed at the wooden box next to the crate.

"I have no clue." Michaelangelo shrugged a put a blanket over Moth "She was clutching that thing like her life depending on it, she kept rambling in her sleep about ghosts and crypt-keepers and some other shit like that."

"Is that all?" Venus DeMilo asked, skeptical, there was something more, call it instinct…. Or watching too many cop drama's, either/or.

"Well…" Michaelangelo swallowed hard "When I tried asking her to put the box down, she said 'Jade, they told me to give it to aunt Venus."

Venus DeMilo felt the leaf-green color of her face drain "That's…. That's impossible." She whispered. "She can't be talking to…." She trailed off.

"M….Maybe it was the fever talking." Michaelangelo offered, Venus nodded, but only to convince herself.

"I hope so."

Michaelangelo looked at the wooden box that he literally had to wrestle out of his daughters vice grip earlier "What do you think is in the box?"

"We'll have to find out." Venus DeMilo replied, and slowly opened the lid.

* * *

Moth drifted slowly back to consciousness – then regretted it, aside from being achy, her head felt hot, and her skin felt cold. She tried to stubbornly fall back asleep, but she could not will her body back into the warm embrace of sleep. Groaning in defeat, she rolled onto her side. She was lying on a couch, her head was buried in an old pillow and she was practically mummified in layers of blankets.

'_Weird – why am I cold when I have so many blankets? I should be suffering from heat stroke._' She mused in her head and pushed the blankets off – she immediately shivered, the air felt really cold, really, really cold. Clumsily, she grabbed the blankets again and hid under them '_Why am I cold?_' Moth wondered, and curled into a ball '_Maybe a little bit more sleep…_' And, this time, she managed to drift off uncomfortably. What felt like a few moments later, she heard Venus DeMilo ordering she open her mouth, Moth obliged and then complained in a gurgle when some bitter substance that felt like fine wet sand was forced down her throat. Then some water followed, and she was asleep again. The third time she woke up, it was only because something really cold was put on her forehead, but she felt it rather than fully wake up and was immediately back into dreamland.

The fourth – and final – time she woke up, she snapped away rather than drift like before; she was still on the couch, but she was confused to see the new Lair being more furnished and slightly more lived-in than last time she saw it. In fact, the couch she was on was one of three, and there was a wooden coffee table (with a missing leg, so it was propped up with a cardboard box) and n old TV that was currently on. Even more surprisingly, she saw that her coyote. Raphael, whom she promptly remembered having left at the vet to get shots, was curled in front of the couch. "Hey Raphael." She grumbled – her voice was pretty scratchy, her throat kind of hurt too, but other than that she felt pretty normal.

"Good to see you're finally awake, I was beginning to think we'd need to find a prince." Someone said next to her – she turned to see Michaelangelo was on the other ouch, he was watching TV and was macking on a bag of Doritos.

"You might wanna shave that five o'clock cheesy shadow." Moth said, only to have a triangle-shaped cheesy chip thrown at her. Moth ignored it, rubbed the back of her head and yawned "How long was I out?" She asked.

"Three days." Michaelangelo replied.

Moth's eyes just about popped out like in the cartoons "Whoa, shit. That's some coma." She said in disbelief.

"It wasn't a coma – you were awake sometimes, but you were delusional as fuck." Michaelangelo told her.

Moth didn't remember anything. "How delusional?" She asked.

"You grabbed a glass vase, and told us you were late for the ball, then you said if you didn't get there by midnight the zombies would take over, and that would be back because they would never co-sign with the Triceratons."

"Triceratons?" She inquired, he shrugged an 'I don't know'. "What was wrong with me?"

"You had a fever," Michaelangelo reminded her "we were in the graveyard, and out of nowhere you said you just saw a ghost and you passed out. Venus said the stress of the past several days wore you out, and made you vulnerable to infection and you caught some sickness floating around the sewers."

"Wait, where's the box." Moth demanded and scrambled out of the couch before there was an answer, she began turning her head frantically in search of the box.

"Calm down." Michelangelo demanded and snatched something from under the coffee table – it was the wooden box. Before Moth could say anything he flipped the lid; the box was empty.

"What was in it?" Moth asked.

"Nothing, it was empty." Michaelangelo replied "Where did you get it?"

"These weird brothers who live in a crypt." She answered "I tried to ask them why they wanted me to give Venus DeMilo the box, but their bunker disappeared."

The red-masked turtle gave her an odd look before walking over and putting a three-fingered hand on her forehead "Do you still have a fever?"

She swatted his hand away "I'm serious! There were these crypt-keepers – Benign and Bellicose, showed me their underground bunked in a crypt, and gave me the box. But then the stairs disappeared."

"Right…." Michaelangelo drawled out, clearly unconvinced. "Anyways, now that you've gotten your nice long nap and you're all better now, we have to move on with the plan." Raphael raised his head from his paws and perked his ears as if he could understand Michaelangelo. In a way, he could by the tone.

Michaelangelo handed a cardboard box to his daughter "Tonight, roam the alleys."

The plan – she, being human and not known to Leonardo, would infiltrate the Foot clan, as Yoshi and Leonardo had done. Moth would pretend to be a lowly street punk, and join the Foot, she would 'train' with the Foot and become an Elite guard and lure the three Oroku's into a false sense of security. When they discovered Kai, the immediately decided he would have to be the first to go – to eliminate the chance of the curse passing on. Karai would be next. And finally, Leonardo, after all the best was always last. This took away his chance at good back-up.

"For this, you will have to go without your fur-gear and replace it with human clothes." Michaelangelo said "You have to pretend you have never been trained in your life, but at the same time show your talent do you would be quickly picked to be an Elite Guard."

Moth nodded – in the cardboard were human clothes – a ripped-up white t-shirt, a ratty leather vest, slightly torn black shorts and sneakers full of holes. "Huh, punk costume." She noted, though she mentally agonized that she would have to wear human clothes.

"And," Michaelangelo continued "That means you have to give up your mask _and _your weapons."

"_What?_" Moth exclaimed in disbelief – her mask and weapons? But those were like a part of her… No, they _were_ a part of her. "You will not take my tomahawk! Or my swords! And I'd sooner die than take off my mask!"

"Moth, be reasonable." Michaelangelo reprimanded "If you're an untrained street rat, that you would obviously not have weapons except for maybe a gun or pocket knife. And when you are in the foot clan, they would give you different weapons. And if you wore your mask, Leonardo would automatically guess you were mine – the red masks are a mark of our clan."

Moth chewed her bottom lip; she didn't like it…. But she could have to do it "Fine." She sighed.

"If they ask you who your parents are, you say…?"

"Don't matter anymore."

"If they ask you where you came from, you tell them…?"

"I ran away….?"

"If you are ever around Kai without any one else around, you will…?"

"End his life and the curse where it stands."

"And tonight, you are going to…..?"

"Find the Foot recruiters, and infiltrate."

"Good."

* * *

_...Sorry updates have been slow, but I've been preoccupied with Stars Wars the New Republic, I think it's a valid excuse._

_Read and review, it drives me to write faster _


	9. Infiltration

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"_No one knows what it's like._

_To be the bad man, to be the sad man,_

_Behind blue eyes._

_No one knows what it's like,_

_To be hated, to be faded to telling only lies."_

'_**Behind Blue Eyes**__', _by Limp Bizkit

* * *

From the top of a building, Kai watched the punks hanging in the alley; typical, 'rebellious' teenagers with bad attitudes who thought living life out on the streets was cool. In this group there were about five of them, and about a few minutes ago they welcomed a 'newcomer', a girl who asked if this was where run-aways' hung out. Out of the six, about four of them were guys and only two of them were girls.

"Will these six do, sir?" One of the Foot ninja behind him asked, Kai glared at the six punks past his red mask and straightened his rice-hat; something about the newcomer made him uneasy, though he did not let it show. Clearly, even though these teenagers and young adults were out of shape, they were also at the age where they could be in the physical prime of their lives, making them exceptional candidates.

"They will do." Kai nodded "Give them the proposal, and collect the ones that accept." He ordered, a party of four Foot ninja jumped into the alley, surprising the run-aways'.

Kai watched; the head of the party explaining the proposal with the help of the other three, the run-away's glancing at each other uncertainly, some of them looked as if they were going to leave, but when the new comer came up with a wry grin and a statement of agreement, the others followed like ducklings; like stupid, dependant followers. Kai could have sworn the girl glanced at him, but he waved it off, he was just being paranoid, like his father often was….

The Foot ninja lead them to the rooftop, it took a while for most of recruits them to get to the rooftop… Except for the strange girl, she trailed right at the Foot ninja's heels and in fact could have probably made better time than they could judging by the impatient look she had.

'_I do not trust that girl._' Kai decided, his instincts never failed him before. He tipped his rice-hat down to cover his head, he did not want to give the humans a heart-attack by letting them know he was a turtle first on.

The party of Foot ninja, and the group of six run-aways' were finally assembled in front of him; his Foot ninja were stoic as always, and the run-aways looked nervous….. Except for the girl, she held a grin that seemed almost crazed.

"I'm Elite guard of the Foot clan," Kai said to them "and head of recruiting, state your names."

A dark-skinned, skinny young man with a side-ways hat answered first "Kyle Reno.".

Next was a girl with short, spiky red hair and bas-relief freckles "Joyce Quinn."

Then a boy with dark red hair and light green eyes "Cody Jones." The girl whom Kai did not trust seemed to tense up at the name, but she immediately returned to normal.

Then a brown-hair brown-eyed boy "Patrick Keene."

Then, a boy with tan skin, wild blonde hair and brown eyes "Clay Travis."

Finally, the girl that Kai did not trust. Now that she was close, he could see her clearly; she had very ragged dusky-brown hair with bangs that covered one half of her face, she had many old and new scars along her form, and dangerous amber eyes. "Stella Marlowe." She answered.

Kai nodded "In this clan, if you are addressed, you will be addressed by your last names; in the Foot, you will receive food, shelter, uniforms and training, and in return you will use that training to serve us in combat."

They all nodded.

"The training will be in Ninjitsu; you will be trained at Foot ninja and after a bit of basic training, you will all receive weapons. As a Foot ninja, you will obey orders without question; you will not speak out of line either, unless if you wish to be punished." They, except for Marlowe_, _flinched "You will receive orders from our leader the Shredder, and the four Elite guards, one of which is me as I mentioned before." Kai then took off his rice-hat; all of them were shocked to see his bald, green head.

"Holy shit! An alien!" Marlowe gasped and moved back as if she were going to run away.

"Relax." Kai hissed "My name is Oroku Kai – and I am not the only mutant turtle, my father, another Elite guard and Sergeant of Subordinate training, is a mutant turtle as well. So you better get used to the idea of giant talking turtles."

All of the recruits nodded fearfully.

"Follow me; we are going to Foot head quarters." Kai demanded and led them down to the streets, where they would load into a truck. Once down to a different alley, he ordered they pack into the truck, while one of his Foot ninja drove them to Foot head-quarters.

"Hey," Marlowe said to him, Kai glared at her "what's the whole 'Elite guard' thing about?"

Curious cadet? He was inclined to answer even if he did not wish to "There are four of us, we are the Shredder's body guards and the greatest of her assassins, and we also take up different important tasks. Me, head of recruiting. My father, Leonardo, Sergeant of Subordinate training. Doctor Stockman, head of research and science. And Mashimi, Front line of combat."

Marlowe nodded, she probably understood their tasks just by his brief explanation, after all it was not hard. "By the way, nice hat." She commented.

"I get that a lot." Kai replied coldly, he studied Marlowe for a moment, he could see that with her slumped foreword, her hair was out from the side of her face and he could actually see her face "Nice scar." He commented, she did not seem bothered. He wondered how someone could get a wicked scar like that, three slashes, the shortest one somewhat lapped onto her nose, the longest one went over her eye and stopped at her forehead, and the last ended near the corner of her eye but lead all the way to the side of her head and nicked the corner of her ear even. It wasn't even a clean cut, so it could not have been made by knives or anything.

She shrugged "I get that a lot too." Marlowe replied and grinned madly.

'_I definitely do not trust her' _Kai ultimately decided; he would keep an eye on her. There was something off about her. What kind of Manhattan street-tough was sun-tanned, anyways? Not even the roughest street rat had that many scars anyways, or calloused hands. And Kai, having been recruiting street-rats for good portion of his life, never remembered seeing one so healthy; Marlowe had a fair amount of muscle and no rolling fat and wasn't malnourished. Most street kids were not exercised because they could not afford a gym membership, had poor grades so they did no sports, and had to eat cheap junk and fast food, putting them in less-than-great shape.

There was something off about Marlowe, but the Shredder had told him to turn away no recruits, so he would have to follow orders for now. But any funny business and Marlowe was done for; Kai couldn't afford to take risks if he was to be the Shredder one day.

Jones was also up for debate – Kai could tell by the boys name and appearance he was the offspring of Casey and April Jones. Cody would be turned away too and immediately considered a spy, if it weren't for the resentful gleam in his eyes that Kai had seen in many of the recruits, saying he truly believed he was deep in teenage bullshit and was rebelling against his parents, who must not have told him about Shadow Jones.

The rest of the trip was filled only with awkward silence.

* * *

After the 'Orientation', or rather the ritual of being given a Foot ninja Uniform and a small room, Moth came into the room that was now hers to live in. Legally, it was probably more of a closet, being a rectangular 10x9 room, with a tiny closet which was full only of extra uniforms, a mattress on the floor as a bed, a hardwood floor and a small dresser at the foot of the bed. The dresser had an alarm clock on it. The bed had a blue blanket, a simple white-cased pillow, and a brown quilt; there was also a tiny window and a shelf above the bed. There was also a rectangular white rug. Finally, there was a door leading to a tiny bathroom with a sink, a toilet and a small stall shower.

May have been small and simple, but it was a lot to Moth – seeing as she had lived her entire life in a cave. Moth dropped her backpack on the bed, and changed into the foot uniform, securing the full-face mask on her head. Admittedly, she did not like fabric – she was used to the roughness of animal pelts, and she preferred it over the smoothness of cloth, and she wanted her red mask too.

Being recruited, she made up a name – Stella, from a childhood favorite story about a bat named Stellaluna, and Marlowe from her favorite character from a book called _King Rat. _Of course, she could tell that creepy Kai already mis-trusted her, but that was okay, it would only be a slight setback, she would eventually gain his trust, making it all the more sweeter when she severs his head. Even though she had only exchanged few words with Kai, she already did not like him – his emotionless, cold exterior – and interior as well, the look in his eyes was clearly dead….. She felt kind of bad for him, actually, being raised by the flagrant lord and lordess of all evil, he probably didn't know anything about love or affection.

From her backpack, Moth took out a shell-cell, three of which Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo had been saving for years and used to keep touch with each other, they had not given one to Moth until tonight. Moth dialed her masters number and put it to her ear.

"_Are you in?_"

"Infiltration complete. Phase two begins tomorrow." Moth answered.

"_Good… What's your alias anyways?_"

"Marlowe."

"_I knew you liked that book._" Michaelangelo chuckled "_Remember, no matter __**how **__much you want to show up, you have to pretend you don't know the first thing about Martial Arts, that means __**pretending **__to not a move the first couple of times._"

"Roger that."

"_Alright… Good night Moth._"

"Good night, love you father."

"_Love you too._"

**Click.**

Moth stored the shellcell back into the backpack (which also had normal things a street rat would have; some junk food, human clothes, junk-food, a notebook and a chewed-up pencil.) Also, her favorite, a copy of _King Rat, _old, slightly ripped with many bent corners and faded cover that had suffered through nature.

Putting the backpack on the ground, Moth set the alarm clock at the time Kai had told her and the other street rats to set it to, not as early as she usually got up in the morning so it was an upside. Once done, she took off the full-face mask and rested her head on the pillow; she closed her eyes, she never turned the light of the room on, she was already trained to see in the dark after all, and fell asleep in the den of the enemy.

* * *

"This is wrong." Venus DeMilo growled to Michaelangelo as he hung up "You're putting your own daughter into mortal danger!"

"Moth can handle herself." Michaelangelo retorted "And what else do you propose we do? Moth is glad to help."

"Because you trained her that way." Venus shot back. "Does she really know anything besides vengeance."

"I taught her the most important thing a parent can teach their child, the same thing Master Splinter taught us." Michelangelo's single blue eye softened "How to love."

"And how to be a perfect weapon." Okay, that kind of stung.

"Venus, I thought you were with me on this!"

"I used to be, when you thought this up a long time ago! Twenty years ago! When we were both battered, maimed and filled with grief! I thought you went off the deep-end with that Jade thing, but I was wrong, this is low."

"Either I let Moth join our enemies and betray their trust, or we _all _perish in a fruitless fight against Leonardo!"

"Is that all you have come to? Your _hatred _of Leonardo? You weren't always that way Mike, you never hated so intensly before….."

Michaelangelo frowned, he struggled to keep his emotions in check before he quietly said "I'm…. Still me."

"Are you?" Venus frowned "Mikey, I understand why you're doing all of this, I really do, but I don't like it, I'm sorry if I say things that might hurt you….. But I hate seeing my little brother so bitter and hateful."

"I know," Michaelangelo sighed; feeling so old, but small, at the same time "I know. Grief crushed us both…"

* * *

**So since this is an alternate-universe, a lot of the same characters show up, but in different forms. Baxter Stockman, for one, is not only a scientist, but one of the Elite guards. And Mashimi is again a member of the Foot clan, but not affiliated with Yoshi. The Foot clan is also somewhat of a society, run by the Shredder; the Elite guards are commanded by the Shredder, but each of them has different responcibilities in the Foot clan besides being a personal guard-dog and assassin.**


	10. Turtles night out

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"Venus, I'm going for a run topside, 'kay?" Michaelangelo said, putting the hood of his cowl over his head and drifting towards the exit slowly, waiting for Venus to acknowledge him.

"I might go for run later as well." Venus called from the couch as she flipped the channel of the TV "Don't get caught by the Foot!"

"I'll try." Michaelangelo chuckled and ran out of the plant into the sewers; growing up, even if he and his siblings lived in a Dojo topside, they mostly wandered the sewers and occasionally alley's as not to get stir-crazy, so the sewers was nothing new even after fifteen years of living in the sun. He preferred the sun, but it goes without saying that he had always been a little nostalgic.

Coming to the end of a sewer passage, he quickly climbed up a latter and pushed the manhole cover up and checked topside to make sure there was no one was about. Seeing as this manhole was behind a building and under a dumpster, he pushed the dumpster away and climbed onto the surface. "I almost missed doing that." Michaelangelo said to himself and leapt up the rooftops by the fire-escapes, and it wasn't long before he was on the rooftop.

Michaelangelo tentatively walked over to the edge and stared out into the city "I almost forgot about the killer view." He said; it was night, and the city should have been dark – but every building was a light; in the time when everything should be asleep, the humans still managed to stir about. The artificial light even reflected off of the Hudson river, and the murky water seemed pretty for once.

"I wonder if I still got it." Michaelangelo continued to murmur as he produced a grappling hook from under his cowl, he hadn't used a grappling hook in years; having lived in the dense forest of the Shasta mountains, there tree's everywhere he could leap from and there was never really any need for a grappling hook since tree's are nowhere near as tall as sky-scrapers. Shucking his grappling hook, he tried to get a large sign from the next building over, but he missed (damn lack of depth perception….), he tried a few more times before he finally got it. Pulling the rope for safe measure, he tied the other end of the rope to an aluminum pipe and tightrope-walked across.

He had to be careful, keep balance, not panic….. He gave a morbid smile thinking about how Leonardo never did this back in the day, he tried to hide it (and ultimately failed) but he had always been afraid of heights. For that reason, he had always been somewhat behind when it came to roof-jumping. Michaelangelo grimaced; he shouldn't be torturing himself with what was. It's like that one wise man once said: don't look back, you're not going that way…..

Without warning, his felt his whole being ablaze with anger once he was on the other rooftop; he looked ahead of him and saw Leonardo – it wasn't, of course, the real Leonardo; it was a projection made by his over-active imagination. The fake Leonardo looked like the grim reaper himself. It had a smug smirk on his blood-spattered face; his cowl had changed into a black robe with the hood on, in his bloodied hands he held equally bloodied katana. On his sash hung the severed heads of the ones Leonardo had slaughtered, the ones who Michaelangelo had held dear to him; Master Splinter, Donatello, Raphael, Shadow, Angel.

"YOU BASTARD!" Michaelangelo screamed at the hallucination, not caring if it was real or not. He charged at it and hit it with his nunchucks as hard as he could possibly hit – of course, his nunchucks phased right through the hallucination, which did not so much as ripple at the action.

"Why did you betray us?" Michaelangelo demanded, as if the fake Leonardo could answer him "Why? Why did you have to make us suffer? WHY DID YOU DEVOTE YOURSELF TO DESTORYING YOUR OWN FAMILY? You honorless son-of-a-bitch!"

Michaelangelo started punching the hallucination, of course his blows met only empty space, but he kept going anyways, getting angrier and angrier with every strike because he wanted so badly to be hitting the real Leonardo… His anger built up, until his overwhelming emotion just made his lid blow off; he sank to his knee's, feeling nothing but what had been bottled up for years; grief, anger, despair, angst, rage, confusion…

Michaelangelo looked up at the hallucination, managing to keep fluid from filling his single eye "Why?" He asked before he sank onto his hands as well, his chest convulsing with sobs he refused to let out. One of his hands balled into fists and he slammed it onto the ground.

He stayed there for a while, trying to get a grip again, and being so focused on putting himself in order he didn't notice someone come up to him.

"Michaelangelo? Is that you?" An older, surprised voice from behind him asked with uncertainty; Michaelangelo was instantly back on his feet as he turned around. His single blue eye narrowed.

"Silver Sentry?" He inquired and mentally sighed – he really didn't need this right now.

"It is you." The muscular hero said and grinned, he walked closer to Michaelangelo; over the years, the superhero's face was now lined with age, and his hair was gray, and his costume was slightly modified. But he was still the Silver Sentry Michaelangelo used to know. "It has been a long time, Michaelangelo."

"Fifteen years, I think." Michaelangelo said in a hollow voice. The old hero smiled.

"You have grown – and what happened to that little girl of yours?" Silver Sentry asked – that last time he had seen the cowl-wearing turtle in New Jersey, he had been carrying a small child with him, whom he explained he was going to adopt.

"She's around." Michaelangelo answered cryptically, then he suddenly became agitated when he remember that she was infiltrating the Foot clan, under Leonardo. "What do you want?" He asked harshly, he rudely pushed past Silver Sentry to grab his grappling hook without waiting for an answer.

Silver Sentry frowned – he knew very well of Michaelangelo's grief and devastation due to losing so many in so little time, but rather than time healing his wounds, or even scarring, it seemed to have made his wounds fester. Leaving an empty, mutilated shell in place of a once cheerful, eccentric turtle.

"Why have you returned to New York?" Silver Sentry asked uncertainly, knowing that so much as insinuating the wrong thing would set the mutant off.

"To kill Leonardo, Karai and their little brat. And destroy the Foot clan once-and-for-all." Michaelangelo replied caustically; Silver Sentry flinched at the blood-lust in Michaelangelo's voice.

"Michaelangelo, you can't just…." Silver Sentry began, only for Michaelangelo to turn back to him in full-force anger.

"I **CAN'T! ?**" Michaelangelo roared "Fuck you fucking superhero's! This isn't the comic book world; you can't send a criminal to jail and expect everything to be well and good; THEY GET OUT OF JAIL AND SWEAR REVENGE! And Leonardo has had this coming; FOR GOD SAKES HE SLAUGHTERED MANY! It is only right he follows suit! So don't cram that self-righteous, comic book 'justice' down my throat, BECAUSE I DON'T FUCKING BUY IT ANYMORE! So fuck off Silver Senry…." His voice lowered "Fuck off….. I'm not one of you anymore…. I was just a wannabe super-hero, thinking I could make some kind of a difference….."

Silver Sentry walked over and put a hand on his former comrades shoulder; back in the day, Michaelangelo had been a member of the Justice Force, the best out of the heroes without super powers, the Turtle Titan. In fact, even his sister Venus DeMilo had been a member, because her mentor was Nobody. But then, upon the tragic genocide of his family and friends, both of the remaining turtles rejected their 'hero' identities.

"I'm not a superhero anymore, Silver Sentry…." Michaelangelo said sadly "I'm a more of a tragic hero….." He pulled himself back together "How's 'Joyce'?" He asked in a lower voice.

Silver Sentry rubbed the back of his head "I am not sure….. She went missing a couple of days ago…"

Michaelangelo narrowed his single blue eye "Vigilantism is a dangerous game…."

"Do you ever play any other kind?" Silver Sentry asked, Mikchaelangelo could imagine his eyes flashing behind his mask.

Michaelangelo shook his head "'Fraid not, old friend." He yanked the grappling hook and all of it swung back at him.

"Michaelangelo, if you ever need help -!"

"Fuck off!" Michaelangelo growled "I may not have super strength and the ability to fly like you, but I'm not a fucking helpless civilian. I don't want help. I don't need help. This is the business of my clan, and my clan alone."

"Age and bitterness has made you an ass, Hamato." Silver Sentry said and crossed his arms – if there was one thing he remembered about this turtle, it was that he disliked being called by his last name. In response, Michaelangelo threw a shuriken – but being super-powered as he was, all Silver Sentry had to do was flex and the shuriken just deflected off of him.

"Yeah it has; remember that and stay out of my way." Michaelangelo warned before returning to the shadows – that was one thing Michaelangelo had over the other heroes; darkness was his world, more so than Nobody even.

Silver Sentry sighed, remembering a happier time, or rather, a happier Michaelangelo. But then he remembered the turtles upbeat personally crashing and burning at the deaths of his slaughtered father, brothers, friends, and even the very much innocent baby.

Killing was against his morale.

But Leonardo was an exception.

* * *

"This is the corner of Eastman and Laird?" A pizza delivery boy said to himself as he came to what looked like an empty street corner "But where's the place?"

"You're standing on it." A voice coming from nowhere, making the pizza guy jump.

"Who said that?" The boy asked, looking around but seeing no one.

"Try looking down." The voice chuckled; the boy looked down; he wanting on a sewer duct – he could see a dark shape underneath, with a bill of money poking out. "Just slip it down." The guy, or whatever it was, commanded.

A little bit weirded out, the pizza guy grabbed the bill and slipped the pizza, which was snatched by the 'person' underneath.

"Hey, this is only a ten!" The pizza boy complained.

"Sorry, you were late."

"Come on, I was late because I had trouble finding the place."

"A wise man once said; forgiveness is key, but don't pay full price for late pizza (**1**)."

There were splashes, meaning whatever was in the sewers was walking away.

* * *

"New York really does attract all kinds." Michaelangelo heard the pizza boy topside groan.

"I heard that!" Michaelangelo said before walking further away with the box of pizza under one of his arms; he hadn't had pizza in _fifteen god-damn years. _Growing up, and while he lived in Jersey, he had eaten pizza at least every other day. And, of course, there wasn't a Domino's in the mountains was there?

Suddenly, there was a very loud bang above his head, topside, and then a loud thud and footsteps – he recognized it as the crack of a gun. He sighed; "I wonder what poor sucker got shot?" Having grown up in New York, he was used to hearing guns. In fact, in their teens he and his siblings would perform heroics every time they heard gunshots. Either carrying the shot person to the hospital, or fighting gangsters, ect. What fools they had been, thinking they were making some kind of difference.

Still, he could not shake the bad feeling he had welling up inside him, sighing again he dropped his pizza and went to the nearest manhole to surface topside. He lifted the sewer-cover a little bit to glance out; several feet away was a all too familiar shape lying on the concrete on their shell….

"No!" Michaelangelo couldn't help but shout as he jumped out of the sewer hole over to his sister; Venus DeMilo was half on her shell and half on her side; but there was a small hole in her plastron where blood was pouring out onto the ground and surrounding her in a small puddle, and she was coughing out the same thick red substance. She was, unfortunately for her, still conscious, but at least she was alive.

So she had gone for a run...

"Venus! Venus, are you alright? What happened?" Michaelangelo asked in panic as he picked up her head; panic filling him. No…. No, he couldn't lose Venus, he couldn't lose his sister too! He lost too much already!

"M-Mikey…. I…" Venus said and went into a fit of coughs; blood flowing out of her mouth and staining her teeth.

"Please, Venus, please don't die…" Michaelangelo whispered and picked his sister up off the ground bridal-style "I'll get you help, just hang on, okay?" Venus nodded weakly and struggled to remain conscious; if she were to become unconscious, she would go into shock and they both knew that.

Michaelangelo looked around; how could he get help? ! He didn't know the first thing about treating gunshot wounds, and it's not like he could take Venus, a mutated turtle, into the hospital.

He peeked out of the alley and looked around; what for, he didn't even know. An idea would be good.

He stepped out of the alley, sticking to the shadows even though no humans were out. A ninja can never be too careful; he looked to the front door of one of the apartment houses and his eyes widened at the name on one of the mailboxes.

Jones/O'Neil.

'Could it be….?' He thought; he strained to listen, and in fact he could hear what sounded like a mans thick Brooklyn accent, and the background noise of a sports game on a television. 'Casey!' He realized and looked to the front; two cars were parked; April had to be home too.

Michaelangelo ran back into the alley and scrambled up desperately – but carefully, as to make sure he did not drop Venus – the fire-escape until he came to a window; he saw a much-older April O'Neil sitting with her back turned to him and she typed away at a computer.

Michaelangelo frantically tried to open the window – luckily, it smoothly slid open and he came into the room "April!" He called, catching his former ally's attention.

April turned around immediately in surprise; her slightly wrinkled green eyes widened when she saw a 'person' she never thought she would see again.

"Mikey?" She whispered in shock; she could tell it was him from his skin color, but by voice she never would have guessed. In fact, this turtle in front of her looked far more mature and rugged than her Mikey from many years ago.

"April, I need help; Venus was shot in the chest, she needs a doctor; like you!" Michaelangelo began to bed, before April could respond, he fell on his knee's still holding Venus "I know you hate us! I know you wish you never knew us! I know we're the reason you lost Shadow! But please, April; if you feel any iota of kinship towards us, you'll help. I can't lose Venus too, not like Splinter, not like my brothers….."

April rushed over and looked at Venus DeMilo, who was borderline comatose with pain at the moment "Put her on the bed." She demanded, the 'doctor' part of her being coming out and blocking all questions of the two turtles re-appearances. She went into the bathroom and came out with a few things.

April took out a scalpel "Turn her onto her side; blood is filling her lungs." She commanded – Michaelangelo did just that, and April made somewhat deep incision with her scalpel, she then brought out a long, thin plastic tube usually used for I.V'S and put one end inside of a bucket she had brought and the stuck the other end inside of the incision, burrowing it deep in the chest cavity. Blood flowed out of the tube and drained out of the female turtles lungs.

April than took out a syringe and injected the anesthesia into Venus – the turtles brown eyes fluttered shut. "Stay back, Mikey." She said "Taking the bullet out of going to be difficult – I'm going to use a small buzz-saw to open her plastron so I can take the bullet out. This is going to take a while and I need the upmost concentration, and no turtle breathing down my neck to whole time."

Michaelangelo just nodded and headed for the door "I guess I'll fill Casey in…. We have some catching up to do." He said dryly, he then looked to April with his single blue eye full of gratitude "April… Thank you."

April did not respond. Sighing, Michaelangelo closed the door behind him.

Slowly he walked down the hall and then the stairs; the living room was dark except for the lights of the TV. Slowly and silently, Michaelangelo inched his way into the living room. He cleared his throat, which caught Casey's attention "Casey?" Michaelangelo addressed.

Immediately the light was flicked on; Casey was in front of him a couple feet and the hockey stick the man was holding was a mere inch away from Michaelangelo's calm face.

Casey had changed in the past twenty years, as expected – he was much older now (after all, he was almost sixty, having been a teenager while Michaelangelo and his siblings were children) his raven-black hair was streaked with gray, white and silver, his face was lined with the years. But his blue eyes will still aflame with that famous temper that made Casey…. Well, Casey.

As Casey registered who was standing in front of him, he dropped his hockey stick "Raph?" He breathed "Is dat you? How?"

Michaelangelo couldn't help the bitter chuckle "I know I'm old Casey, but surely I'm not that ugly for you to mistake me for him."

Casey frowned, his old eyes showed some amazement "Mike?" He said uncertainly, and Michaelangelo nodded. "Shit Mike, you've changed." Casey said; Michaelangelo looked at him self, he hadn't noticed, but yes he had changed much in appearance. He was taller, broader and more muscular than he had been in the past, healthier because of the years he had spent in the sun, and he had an extensive collection of old and new scars. No wonder Casey had mistaken him for Raphael. After all, when they all wore the same cowls and mask, the only things really distinguishing them from each other was their eye color and skin tone. And it didn't help that his voice was much deeper and gruffer than it had been in the past.

"It's been a long time, Casey." Michaelangelo said "I'm sorry that we came back to you guys."

Casey frowned and sighed "Mikey – we don't blame you guys anymore…. We were grieving hard at the time; we put the blame on you guys instead of who deserved it – Leo. Not you and Venus. We didn't even realize how bad what we said to you was until you guys fell off the face of the planet."

Michaelangelo looked to the ground still.

"We don't hate you guys." Casey said with emphasis.

"We came back to New York – to get our revenge on Leonardo." Michaelangelo told Casey, changing the subject quickly "We've only been back a few days –but Venus got shock, by a complete stroke of luck we found you guys."

Casey sat on the couch and signaled Michaelangelo to sit next to him "Tell me what's been up with you the past twenty years, this might take a while."

Michaelangelo sat down next to him and thought for several moment "Where should I start?" He asked.

"How about when you and Venus left New York."

With that, Michaelangelo began to explain – how he and Venus separated, how for five years he lived in New Jersey. He told Casey about Moth, and carried on to when he and his adopted daughter moved to California in the foot hills of the Shasta mountains. He then explained how recently Leonardo finally sniffed them out, so they collected Venus and all three of them returned to New York to get their revenge on Leonardo.

"Whoa…." Casey said when Michaelangelo was done "Mike, it's nice to hear you adopted a daughter, especially after - !"

"Don't finish that sentence." Michaelangelo warned in a low voice; there was pain in his eyes and Casey understood that the red-mask ninja did not want to talk about it.

"But that brings up the question of," Casey continued "where is daddies little ninja girl?"

"Infiltrating the Foot clan." Michaelangelo answered stoically, getting a disapproving look from Casey, who would argue if he had a chance of getting through the turtles thick scull.

April then came into the room – Michaelangelo peeked at his watch under his wrist-guards and saw it had been about an hour – wow, time really passed when you talked to someone for the first time after twenty years.

"How is she? !" Michaelangelo demanded, expecting the worst but hoping for the best.

"Venus is going to be fine." April said with a smile "Everything went perfectly – it was a little tricky, but I managed to pull her plastron back together after I got the bullet out – thank god we have that turtle wax. There is no long-term damage and she should be fully healed after a month or so."

"Thank you." Michaelangelo said with a respectful bow "I guess we'll get out of your hair now." He rushed up the stairs without other words.

"Mikey, wait!" April shouted as she chased him up the stairs – damn, twenty years and he still had that energy? However, once she got to the bedroom, the window was already open and both turtles were gone.

"Damn." April muttered sadly, her husband came up from behind her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"April, don't worry." Casey soothed.

"They think that we hate them." April stated "Mikey really believes that – and did you see the look in his eye? I could hardly believe it was him… He seemed so…. I don't know, bitter."

"I get it, I thought he was Raph first time I got a look at his mug." Casey admitted "But hey, we'll find them, and path things up the right way."

"You really think that we can? After all this time?"

"April, we've known them since they were kids, a couple of hurtful things said won't keep them away forever as long as they know we didn't mean them."

"I guess you're right….. But, this is a lot to absorb… Especially with Cody going missing."

"We'll find 'im, April, trust me, our son ain't stupid, he got your brain instead of mine."

April giggled a little "You always seem to know what to say, Casey."

"It's a gift, babe."

* * *

**(1) Heh, couldn't help the TMNT movie reference.**

* * *

_So this chapter was Mikey-centric because of Moth has been the one mainly featured and I figured Mikey needed more of a spotlight._


	11. Humans night out

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

_"Well it's midnight, damn right; we're wound up too tight._

_I gotta fist full of wiskey, the bottle just bit me; ooh, that shit makes me bat shit crazy._

_We git no fear, no doubt, all in balls out. Oooh, we're going out tonight!_

_To kick out every light! Take anything you want! Drink everything in sight!_

_We'll go 'till the world stops turning and we;ll burn it to the ground tonight!"_

**_"Burn it to the ground"_**by Nickleback

* * *

Three months pass and Moth or _Marlowe _as she was called, was quickly adjusted to the Foot clan. Although, it did frustrate her that as a new recruit, she had to do start her training right from the beginning, and pretend she didn't get it the first few times. And it didn't help that the 'sensei', Master Mashimi, kept teaching them the wrong things. For one thing, Ninjitsu training always starts with the basic, he kept mixing up the order where he was teaching them flashy, advanced moves and combos before teaching them the basics. And the stances and kata's he made them do was often incorrect. Moth's tongue was almost split in half from her biting it to refrain from correcting him.

The incorrect training aside, Moth also found she had a hard time socializing with other humans. But this was to be expected seeing as she was literally raised in a cave. Three months and the only friend she had was Quinn (Joyce). She liked Quinn; Quinn had real talent in Ninjitsu, she always seemed to get the moves right on the first try and she seemed to understand Moth, and Quinn was the only one Moth really liked because she was smart in the sense that she could understand things, it was a shame she decided to join an evil ninja clan. But, again Moth had a hard time socializing with other humans because she had absolutely no grasp on their slang, and warped sense of humor, and a lot of things 'human'. One instant, Travis (Clay) had made a remark to Quinn and Jones, saying that they were gingers with no souls. Moth immediately reprimanded him and ranted that all people had souls and demanded (at wooden sword-point) that he apologize at once. Keene (Patrick) then explained to her that it was only a joke from 'South Park', whatever that was. Moth narrowed her eyes and asked what was so funny about that joke, and they only face-palmed in response. She also could not shift from her 'savage' ways, like literally tearing at her food, and growling possessively at anyone who came close to her while she was eating, not brushing her hair, chewing her fingernails, scratching her ear with her foot (don't ask, there is a lot of flexibility training involved in that story and lets just say there was a dead bat in the end), eating insects, ect.

There had been this other instant where her group of new recruits were practicing their roof-jumping when Jones screamed at something and every else backed up. Moth saw that what had them freaking out; it was a really big prey-mantis. Moth had grinned a littler before she walked up the giant, green insect and gingerly plucked it up. She then drew I to her mouth, plopped it into her mouth and chewed on it. They stared at her in disgust and shock. Confused at their glances, Moth had asked "What? Oh sorry, if you wanted it you should have said so before." To that, they face-palmed.

Moth may not be very good with people due to inexperience, and general ignorance, but even she could tell that they were questioning her behavior. Kai especially.

Speaking of the youngest of the Oroku clan, he was just about the most closed-off, cold-hearted, arrogant asshole with-a-big-stick-up-his-OCD-shell, kind of guy Moth had ever met. Well, she may not have met many people in her life but still. Unfortunately, she had to 'work' with Kai every day, since he was head of recruitment that meant he had to teach the rules of the Foot to the new recruits. Though, she was no longer a 'cadet' anymore, she and Joyce had both become full-fledged Foot ninja after one month because of their impressive 'progress'. That meant they were both upgraded to better rooms, and bigger food portions (Moth actually never minded the old food portions, considering she could not each much in the mountains. Three meals a day was amazing compared to the one-meal-a-day-and-maybe-two-if-you're-lucky-otherwise-it's-stored-for-winter she was used to.). And they were also given actual weapons. Quinn was given a_ Naginata_, while Moth was given twin katana. That was something she absolutely hated; they reminded her of her evil uncle, in fact that was the exact reason the swords her father had given her _scimitar, _because he hated Leonardo so much. And in the Foot clan they didn't use metal-splinters, which was another bummer. The third bummer about weapons was that she was allowed only one, that also kind of sucked because she was so used to using a tomahawk alongside her _scimitar _that it would perhaps be a bit easier to getting used to this whole Foot thing if she could carry around a small battle-axe to replicate her tomahawk.

But off the tangent, Kai was impossible. He barely ever spoke and yelled at the top of his lungs at people when they made the slightest mistake, he was a definite grammar-nazi, and he was OCD…. Really freaking OCD, she had once been shooting a target with shuriken, when Kai walked in and eyed the target. Moth expected him to compliment her for hitting the target nine times out of ten, when he yelled at her for not getting it one out of ten, which was after he walked over to the target and pulled out the stray shuriken which was half a centimeter away from the center of the target, then stabbed it into the center. When she questioned why he had done that, he muttered that it 'didn't look right.' And he chewed exactly thirty times every time he ate something, even _gum; _once he had mashed it with his teeth thirty times it went down his throat. And he trained obsessively, sure Moth herself had a tough training ritual, but he would perfect a kata a thousand more times than what would be considered _extreme. _

And to make matters worse, Kai definitely knew that something about her was off.

She had yet to meet Leonardo or Karai. Tonight she was; she and Quinn were becoming Front-Line Foot ninja. There was a small pyramid of power in the Foot clan, from the largest with the least power it was; Cadets, Foot ninja, Front-line fighters, Elite guard, and at the very top was the lady Shredder, Karai herself. She was now one step away from being an Elite guard. It also meant she would be have to see Leonardo more than she would ever want to, seeing as he trained the Front-line fighters. It took every iota of her strength to refrain from ranting when she was informed this by Jones (Cody), but she had only meekly nodded.

Speaking of Jones, he worried her, he really did. Moth could by his name and looking at him, that he was April and Casey's brood, and though she was glad that the couple did have another child after the tragic murder of Shadow, but Jones was….. Err…. In laymans terms; a disappointment from her perspective. He talked trash about his parents, he was ungrateful and resentful (He ranted about his parents being too strict because they literally smashed his phone with a hockey stick because he texted over his limit. Moth almost burst out laughing because that was nothing compared to the time she stayed out too late at night with her coyotes, and she was punished by being forced to crawl up a rushing creek by grabbing the rocks, and it was in the middle of _winter._). He was pessimistic, he complained too much, he mouthed off to Kai (getting punched every time he did that) and he talked bad about people right in front of them. He was skilled when it came to Ninjitsu, he really was, but not skilled enough to justify he bad attitude. Moth questioned if he really ran away, or if his parents just kicked him out, kicking him out sounded like a rational thing to do if you knew him long enough.

"Guys, you don't have to do this." Quinn said to Reno (Kyle), Travis, Jones and Keene. Moth was standing next to Quinn, a small grin on her own face. The guys from their former Cadet squad decided to surprise them on the night before their promotion, with a ditch roof-hopping. Ditch roof-hopping was, in the Foot clan, pretty much running off from their patrol group and causing some small trouble around the city. Moth was reluctant, but she decided that since they thought she was a real Foot ninja, she should at least act like one.

"Of course we did, sure we're pissed that you get to be Front-liners while our asses are still Cadets, but we still a team right?" Keene asked, is gaze turned to Moth "I'm glad you decided to join us, Marlowe. You were always the life of the party back in the cadets."

Jones scoffed "She wasn't….. She was just a weirdo with no table manners."

"_She _can hear you," Keene hissed before Moth could defend herself "yo man, why do you gotta be such a dick anyways?"

"Why again did we invite him anyways?" Reno muttered, earning him a cold glare from Jones.

"Can't we just go guys? We're all friends here." Travis said and calmed each of them down.

Laughing about their plans, they roof-hopped away to the nearest closed convenient store. There, they grabbed (_Stole, _Moth had realized with a wince) toilet-paper, two chocolate cream pies, balloons, three two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew, several tubes of mentos, spray paint and, finally, a _lot _of shaving cream.

"What do we do with this?" Moth dare asked when they hefted their loaded plastic bags with them up to the roof of the very store they had just robbed.

"Patience Marlowe." Travis cackled and rubbed his hands together in a cartoon-evildoer motion, the others laughed but Moth just looked at him dumbfounded (because she had never watched cartoons.). Travis took Quinn's _Naginata _and used it to cut one of the chocolate cream pie's into 6 slices and distributes it among each of them.

"What's the other pie for?" Moth asked past a mouthful of chocolate pie filling.

"You'll see." Travis chuckled.

Jones made a face "Do you _have _to talk with your mouth full?" He growled "What, were you raised in a cave?"

"Yes, in fact I was." Moth responded; her 'comrades' burst out in laughter, under he impression that she had been kidding. Oh, if they only knew…

"I'd believe it." Jones said with a roll of his eyes "I remember one time I was reaching for the salt shaker, and you _snarled _at me and leered over your plate of spaghetti. It was like a wolf over a deer carcass."

'_Hmm… I wonder how Raphael is?_' Moth wondered, when she and her father discussed her joining the Foot, they decided that since she would not be home, her 'pet' coyote Raphael would stay with Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo.

"Why do you do that anyways, Marlowe?" Travis asked "You act as if you really were raised in a cave…. Where did you say you were from?"

"Doesn't matter." Moth snapped.

"Let's just get on with the night!" Quinn insisted; Moth mentally thanked her friend for the save. They quickly devoured the rest of their pie and roof-hopped a few more buildings. The building they stopped appeared to be a...

"Wallmart? What are we doing on the top of a Wallmart?" Jones asked; he had been to the Wallmart in the center of the city many times, but wasn't this a bit random?

"Just watch and learn, ginger." Keene said and took out the mentos, one of the liters of mountain dew, and the balloons. The others milled around to watch as he filled the balloon with some mountain dew, then popped a mentos out of the tube and into his palm. "This, ladies, gentleman, and Jones; is a home-made snack grenade." He dropped the mentos into the soda-filled balloon and chucked it over the edge as fast as possible. They waited for a few split seconds before the heard someone scream.

"Heheh, good idea Keene." Travis said, and they all started making the 'grenades', taking swigs of mountain dew every now and then.

"Uh oh, cops." Quinn said as she heard the incoming sirens. "One of our targets must have dialed the NYPD."

"Ninja's out!" Keene laughed in a mock command; they gathered up their supplies and disappeared into the darkness of the night. Than again, it wasn't a very stealthy retreat considering they were chanting 'We're the ninja's of New York!' with the occasional 'Deal with it bitches!'

"Well genius, what do you propose we do next?" Jones asked Keene when they were a few good blocks away and were catching their breath.

Keene grinned "Just look at the building we're across from!" The cadet ninja pointed to the building from across the street. In bold Neon letters was the buildings heading _**NYPD. **_

Reno grinned and grabbed one of the many tubes of toilet paper "You guys ready for target practice?" The others nodded and grabbed a tube themselves.

They started to TP'ed the building, laughing whilst doing so. They even made a game out of it; fifteen points for every tube thrown, twenty points lost for every tube that ended up on the ground, fifty points for getting the roll on the building. They also had a bet that the loser would be forced to do something the winner decided. When they ran out, the winner was Moth while the all-time loser was Jones, who had the worse aim out of them. Moth had grinned and said she would tell Jones what to do soon; he had this wide, scared look in his eyes, and you tell he regretted his asshole-ly ways now.

"What next?" Moth asked after a quick swig of the mountain dew; having had very little caffeine in her life compared to these guys, she already had a nice sugar buzz going on. She found herself actually rather excited for their next dose of trouble.

"City hall is our next and last stop." Travis said; he, Moth and Keene grabbed the two-liter bottles and toasted them, before guzzling them down in a drinking contest, around them their comrades were cheering 'Chug' and after they drank about three cups their eyes filled with tears but they finished anyways. Travis was the winner, Keene had second place while Moth had ultimately failed.

"Geeze, you shoot soda like a baby." Travis taunted, letting out a belch.

"I very rarely drink soda; I am more used to water and liquor." Moth retorted, they all looked at her bug-eyed.

"Uh…. How old are you?" Keene asked suddenly.

"Twenty." Moth replied. And then pondered; when was her birthday? She didn't remember… All she could remember was that twice a year, she got presents (Her Birthday, and Christmas) but on her birthday she was told her new age, and she got cake with candles for every year old she was. Her father kept track, but she never really thought much of it.

"Wow, so am I." Quinn said "What about you guys?"

"Eighteen." Travis replied.

"Nineteen." Keene responded.

"Seventeen." Reno said.

Jones twitched and his eyebrow quivered, but he said nothing.

"How old are you, Jones?" Quinn asked politely.

Jones mumbled something, but it was too garbled and quiet to understand.

"What was that?" Reno pressed.

Jones sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat "Fifteen." He finally responded, there was a silence following.

"….Seriously?" Reno finally said "Dude, I could have sworn you were like, eighteen or something!"

"Same thing could be said about Marlowe." Jones said, turning to Moth "I never would have guessed you were twenty."

"Are you calling me short?" Moth asked, pretending to sound offended.

"W-what?" Jones sputtered "No, I was just - !"

"What, trying to hit on her? Gross man, not all girls are cougars." Quinn decided to join in on the 'torment Jones' thing; everyone else gave a hardy laugh as Jones face burned a bright red that almost matched his hair.

"Okay, enough dicking around, let's get to City hall." Reno said and ran for the next jump, the others chuckled and started running, Jones was still blushing so Travis patted him on the back and they started off too.

Once they were there, they decided to finally use the cans of spray-paint, using their surpurb ninja-skill (Well, Moth and Quinn used their ninja-skill…. The others just kinda dangled from ropes and made random colored streaks on the building.)

When they were done they surveyed each others works.

"Is that some kind of deformed pickle?" Moth asked Keene.

"No… It's a dick." He replied.

"What's a dick?" Moth asked. Keene burst out laughing and patted her shoulder.

"You're funny Marlowe, for a minute there I thought you were serious." He said, then his eyes flashed "But if you want to see one…" Quinn suddenly pushed between them and elbowed Keen hard in the ribs.

"Ha ha ha, you are such a flirt Keene, but that's enough." She said. "What did you paint, Marlowe?" Moth pointed at hers, Quinn eyed it and her jaw dropped "Marlowe….. Is that…. _Kanji?_" She asked.

Moth nodded "It's a joke, the kanji means rice, because they're white." She said.

"Mar…. That's the most precise kanji I've seen…." Quinn seemed genuinely amazed "It's better than mine, and I… Uh, took classes for it."

"Thank you." Moth said "We should hit the roofs again, I have to give Jones his loser-dare now." She said with a laugh. Calling the others, they strapped on their shuko-spikes and scaled up the roof.

"What do you want me to do?" Jones asked, sweating nervously.

"Well, I couldn't come up with something, so I asked Reno." Moth explained, there was automatically a groan of 'oh no' from Jones "And this is what you gotta do." She grabbed the can of saving cream they hadn't used and handed it to him, then whispered the dare.

"Oh my god – NO!" Jones shouted, his face was flushed.

"You have to, you were the loser, you have to do the dare." Moth said, then drew out her katana from the cross-sheathes of her uniform (All of them were still wearing their uniforms, minus the masks which they kept under their belts just in case) "Do it, or I'll slice your head off and feed it to the buzzards, then give your tongue, brains and eyeballs to the centipedes, and take those centipedes and cook them on a stick so I may eat them!"

Everyone stared at her, Keene said "Geeze-Louise, remind me not to get on your bad side Marlowe."

Reluctantly, Jones did what was requested, he walked away a few paces and took a deep breath "Okay, no matter what I do, I am _not _gay." Whimpering, he stuck unzipped his fly and put the bottle of shaving cream in his pants and shoved it out of his fly. Face still bright red, he thrust his hips back and forth a few times before he pressed the top of the bottle and shaving cream came flying out.

Everyone but Moth laughed out loud – she pondered, how was that funny? Was that supposed to insinuate something?

"Dude!" Keene said and rubbed the laugh tears away from his eyes. "The look on your face is totally priceless!"

"Not as priceless on the looks about to appear on your faces." A new voice said; Moth and Quinn took out their weapons and the others went into their stances.

"Master Kai?" Travis said stupidly.

"What are you idiots doing?" Kai demanded in a growl "How dare you abandon a mission for foolishness! Especially Quinn and Marlowe! You two become Front-line fighters at dawn! It is not very zen to be fooling around with cadets." His voice was caustic.

The others were frozen with fear and some shame, but Moth only crossed her arms and rolled her arms. She walked over to Kai "Dude, you need to lighten up." She said and pushed him towards him.

"W-Wha! Marlowe! How dare you touch me! I am your commanding officer!" Kai said, Moth rolled her eyes again.

"You wanna know your problem? You're too afraid f being human. And you wanna know what humans do? When we don't work, we play; play as in raise some hell and fuck around." Moth reached under her belt and pulled out a flask and handed it to him.

Kai looked at her shocked "I-I am not old enough to drink!" He said.

Moth rolled her eyes again "Come on Kai, I've been drinking since I was thirteen years old. I know you're a turtle, but act just a bit human and _let go. _Wouldn't you want to relax, and finally be free of all of your stress and worries?" She coaxed.

Kai looked up at her; being the impressionable fifteen-year-old Kai was, he was starting to consider her words; that was right…. He had been forced to be an adult since he was six, it only makes sense he drinks like one….. Kai unscrewed the top and downed the entire flask.

Thirty minutes later.

"Look everyone! The stars are _dancing _across the sky! _Hoshino miku…_" Kai sang.

"Marlowe, you are the amazing." Keene said as they watched Kai ballroom0dance across the rooftop, looking like the happiest kid on Earth "I can't believe you convinced that the Foot clan icecube to drink! Woman, I could marry you…." He purred.

Moth shrugged and grinned; Keene was funny "Sorry, marriage is not on the agenda, but hey, I'll think about it." She joked back, confused by the glint she saw in her 'comrades' eyes.

"Did you really drink ever since you were thirteen?" Quinn asked, tempted to go up and dance with Kai just to say she did.

Moth nodded "My dad would sometimes bring liquor home. When I was thirteen, I decided to take a sip and I liked it, so I had a shot or a can of booze every time he came home, he figured it helped my stress." Moth shrugged. Then felt homesick, and she missed her father. She was not allowed to see him, by his orders, and they talked only through shellcell. It was sad to be only a few miles apart, but be so far at the same time.

"You okay, Mar?" Keene asked, sounding concerned.

Moth shook the sadness away "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay…. Just grab Kai and let's head back to Headquarters. Me and Quinn have to get ready for our promotion at dawn….."

* * *

**Character development~**


	12. The box

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

Moth and Quinn were side-to-side as they entered the Shredder's chambers: Karai, the Shredder, sat on a throne in full armor, while her loyal Elite Guards stood in front of her. Well, Kai was missing, he told his parents he was feeling 'under the weather' when in reality he was somewhat hung over and needed to sleep it off. Actually seeing Karai and Leonardo made rage and nervousness stir deep within Moth, but she opted to ignore it for now, silently she vowed harder to destroy these two.

"Greeting disciples." The Shredder coolly greeted them, her voice was so cold, metallic and… familiar in a way, that Moth shivered on the inside a little. "Kneel.". Moth and Quinn quickly dropped to their knees and bowed with their hands on the ground as well. "It has come to our attention that you are both highly skilled, and are ready to become front line fighters."

"_Hai, _Mistress Shredder." Moth and Quinn chorused politely, it made Moth want to puke, but if course puking in the presence of her 'mistress' would call for her immediate execution.

"Very well, Marlowe, Quinn you shall now receive your new weapons." The Shredder then gestured towards Mashimi and Stockman, who retrieved cloth-wrapped weapons from the side lines, which they then placed in front of the two new Front-Line fighters.

They rose from their hands and stayed on their knees as they unwrapped their weapons; Moth wasn't surprised to find that again she had twin swords, but this time they were ninjaken instead of katana, ninjaken was the literal ninja sword while katana were samurai stock. But Quinn had received twin sai's with twenty-three inch blades; it was strange to change her weapon from long-range to close-combat, but jumping roofs with a long staff with a long blade attached to it was always a bit awkward, especially for Quinn who despite being skilled didn't have the best balance.

"Thank you, my lord." Quinn and Moth said at the same time; they took out their former weapons and placed the items in front of them before sheathing their new weapons in their place. They stood up and nodded.

"You two will receive larger food portions and living arrangements immediately, you will be given time to pack before your rooms are assigned to you." The Shredder continued to drone "Oh, and your uniforms will also change; these new uniforms are slightly modified from your current ones, but they will be more comfortable and will include weights in the wrists, forearms, thighs and ankles, which will make you stronger." They nodded and Moth somehow knew that Quinn made a face behind her mask; it made Moth smile behind hers.

"Now, you may go." The Shredder said, they rose and bowed respectfully before leaving.

"The Shredder scares me." Quinn whispered to Moth when they were out of earshot "I know 'our kind' can be cold, but I could have sworn she was just a talking, cold metal suit." By their 'kind' she had meant their gender. Moth nodded, something about that brief encounter with Karai had left her shaken.

"I know." Moth said; she thought to Jade… Oh god, that was Jades _mother! _It never really fully hit Moth that Karai was the mother of Jade until now. Huh, that kind of made sense…. Maybe that's where Jade got all of her creepy-ness. Speaking of Jade, she hadn't seen her ghost friend in her dreams ever since she joined the Foot.

"Marlowe? Are you okay?" Quinn asked, sounding concerned. Moth realized that a moment ago her face must have drained of color agree.

"Yeah… Just a little fever spell." Moth said simply, Quinn looked at her strangely.

"Fever spell?" Quinn asked "Is that why you sometimes get faint and pale sometimes?" Moth nodded "That is strange, why is that?"

"When I was little, I got really sick one winter, I got so bad that my father had to carry me to the hospital, and it took a while to recover. But it left my immune system a little weak." Moth answered; she didn't know why she told that to Quinn, she never told anyone (not that she had anyone to tell). Probably because Moth was ashamed of it; years of ninja training made her nearly indestructible, yet she could easily be brought down by a chill. Sure, over the years she found ways to elude sickness in the mountains such as staying close to the fire during winter and chewing herbs a lot, but she wasn't granted that at the Foot clan, all of the way across the country in NY where lighting fires was illegal and there weren't any mountain herbs.

"That sucks." Quinn responded "Maybe you should try putting cough medicine in your drinks or something, it might help."

'_What's cough medicine?_' Moth wondered – if it could help, she would try it, but she did not know what it was "Could you…. Get some for me? I uh, don't like going into public you know?" It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.

"Sure thing, what kind do you want?" Quinn asked, Moth just shrugged. The two Foot soldiers departed to their separate room to gather their things.

* * *

Moth didn't have much, so she was done packing in about two minutes, but she wouldn't be told her new room in another hour. She checked her shellcell; she had a message from her father, telling her to go to a certain rooftop, along with coordinates. It also told her she would find a cardboard box in the middle of said rooftop.

Slipping the shellcell under her belt, Moth snuck out of Foot HQ and hit the rooftops. The place her father wanted her to go was only a few miles away, so she should get there and back with plenty of time, but she quickened herself anyways, it was better safe than sorry after all.

Once she arrived at the rooftop, she could see the cardboard box, which was small and had her name written on top of it in bold marker and was in Master Michaelangelo's handwriting. Sighing in disappointment that her sensei was not here after all, she approached the box and picked it up. Seeing as half an hour had already passed, she quickly returned to Foot HQ.

When she got there, her feet had barely hit the floor when another front-line fighter came into the room and told her it was time, she meekly nodded before following the other soldier to her new room, the rooms for the front line fighters were in another wing of the headquarters so it took a while to get there.

Her new room was bigger than her last, had a walk-in closet full of the new uniform she was to wear, a queen-sized bed, a TV, a loveseat, a mini-fridge, a coffee table and even a computer (not that Moth would use it).And a bigger bathroom with a nicer, bigger shower and tub. "Nice." She commented the front-line fighter who had already left. Moth closed the door, took off her Foot mask and set her stuff down.

Moth placed the cardboard box on the wooden coffee table and opened it; she blinked in confusion, it was a cake. She pulled the cake out and placed it on the table as well; it was circular and frosted in orange icing (orange was her favorite color) and in bright red icing was a bold message; **HAPPY 21****ST**** BIRTHDAY! **

Moth was bewildered; it was her birthday? She flipped out her shellcell and checked the date; July 15. So July fifteenth was her birthday? She was sure to remember that. Moth put the phone back and beamed; "Thank you sensei." She whispered, then licked her lips; cake!

There was a knocking at her door "Marlowe! You in there?" It was Quinn "I got some cough medicine!"

"Come in!" Moth called back, Quinn entered. "Would you like some?" Moth asked when her friend entered.

"Sure, thanks." Quinn said and put the brown paper bad down on the paper "So how do we cut this thing?"

Moth brought out her swords and sliced it into six "That answer your question?" She asked as she grabbed a piece and shoved it into her mouth.

Quinn laughed and grabbed a slice for herself "Whoa, calm down, chew before you swallow…." Moth only rolled her eyes.

* * *

"I do not understand…." Leonardo said to Karai "It has been months, yet there had been no sightings of Michaelangelo or the mysterious mutant. I thought for sure he would return to New York for revenge. But our Foot ninja have turned up with nothing!"

"They have combed every inch of the sewers…." Karai told him "But they have yet to find any clues of him. But our Foot ninja did find something interesting three months ago..." Karai dug up a file and handed it to her husband "Read it."

Leonardo eyed the paper; it appeared to be two sets of DNA, the codes were identical "A DNA test?" He rose a ridge "What does this prove?"

"Our Foot ninja came across some blood after a shooting, but no body, they collected the blood and ran some tests on it." Karai explained "And I compared it to yours; now, unless if you bled out recently, the DNA in that blood could have only have come from one individual."

Leonardo grinned when realization hit him "Venus DeMilo…. My dear twin." He chuckled; they were indeed twins, but because of the temperature their eggs were incubated at they were born different genders.

"So they are here." Karai finished "But they are hiding well…."

"We'll send out scores of our Foot ninja on a witch hunt." Leonardo decided "They will search every inch of New York until Michaelangelo, Venus DeMilo, and the mysterious mutant are all bagged and tagged, and ready to be put down."

"I'll have the parties organized." Karai said.

* * *

**Short chapter; but next one will have more action, promise**


	13. First fight

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"_I hack and I slash and I stab and I cut; when I finally find ganon I will fuck him up._

_But this dungeons a maze and I am getting lost, but I will find that bastard no matter the cost._

_Digdogger was mean, but I pulled out a bow; I shot him in the eye with a silver arrow._

_The dark knight is nothing but a stain on my sword; these weak little creatures are leaving me bored._"

'**Ganon Slayer**' by Madhatter. (**Call me a nerd all you want, but nerds will rule the world! MUAHAHA!**)

* * *

"What is it Moth?" Michaelangelo answered into his shellcell; his daughter had called him, which was strange because it was dusk, the time Foot ninja normally went on 'patrol'. The call wasn't expected, because she had already thanked him for the cake last night.

"The Foot are after you!" Moth frantically explained "They found out you and Venus are back in New York, and now we're all going on a city-wide witch hunt!"

"Moth, calm down." Michaelangelo reprimanded.

"What are we supposed to do?" Moth asked from the other line "We're leaving in an hour."

Michaelangelo thought for a moment "I have a plan." He said "Listen carefully….."

* * *

Jumping roofs was awkward for front-line fighters (or front-_liners_), as Moth realized, because of the additional weights in the uniforms. But she and Quinn managed; they were in a squad lead by Kai consisting of her, Quinn, a several other front-liners, scores of Foot ninja, and a dozens of cadets. The group was large; there were four squads scouring through New York, taking North, West, East and South, and led by an Elite Foot ninja. The squad Moth was in took South.

Moth knew the plan her father had concocted, and she was preparing for her part, though she couldn't help but be shaky as she wondered if it could work, and her mind just kept thinking of all of the things that could go wrong?

Moth shook her head to snap out of it as they approached the building. She grabbed Kai by the shoulder and pointed to it "Look – the figure on the storage shed!" She hissed; Kai looked towards it, narrowed his eyes and nodded.

Kai quickly gave them all orders to follow him and prepare for combat. Moth felt a spike of adrenaline – the plan was in it's beginning stages. "I hope your ready to fight." She said to Quinn, who nodded.

"I believe the fight will be interesting." Quinn said, there was a wild glint in the red-haired girls eyes.

They were on the rooftop. Kai stared up angrily at the figure on the storage shed; it was Michaelangelo, sitting on the storage shed with his eye closed and in meditative position.

"I have been expecting you." Michaelangelo said, his eye stayed shut and he stayed in lotus position.

"Really?" Kai coldly retorted "Well, not many are so calm in the face of death."

Michaelangelo chuckled; he stood up and opened his single eye "Face of death? Son, it'd be foolish to assume you so much as stand a chance against me with your lame-ass, mail-order ninja army."

"Lame-ass!" One of Foot ninja repeated, insulted.

"Mail-order?" Another inquired, there were some shouts of rage at the insults the red-masked veteran ninja had just bluntly thrown at them.

"How dare you!" Kai growled.

"Dare I speak the truth?" Michaelangelo inquired and jumped off of the storage shed and onto the rooftop "In fact, I bet I can fling any of your pathetic Foot soldiers and fling them off of the building without trouble."

Moth got into action; she feigned anger and charged at him "I bet you can't!" She roared, ignoring her comrades and Kai who warned her to fall back. She ran towards her father and he stood there calmly, when she at the right range, he grabbed her by the shoulders, stopping and holding her in place. With a firm grip, Michaelangelo moved back towards the ledge "Venus will catch you on the flip side." He whispered, too quiet for the other Foot ninja to hear them.

Moth mouthed 'okay'. With that, Michaelangelo dropped onto his shell and kicked Moth, sending her flying over the ledge. She heard her comrades screaming, and then the unsheathing of weapons.

But when she had dropped only about two stories, she was pulled into the building from an open window by a green hand, she was pulled in to where she landed in the room on her feet.

"Thanks Venus DeMilo." Moth said and bowed respectfully to her aunt. Venus nodded and handed her a cardboard box without a top. It looked to be full of all-to-familiar garments.

"That is your gear, change quickly and I will give you your weapons." Venus ordered. Moth nodded and pulled out her mountain-clothes.

"Okay, but turn around I don't want to change in front of you." Moth said.

Venus rolled her eyes and turned around, she crossed her arms. "Alright, just don't take too -!"

"Done!" Moth told her; Venus whirled back around; she saw the Foot uniform on the ground, and Moth was in her gear; red mask, fur cowl, bone-capped elbow/knee pads, boots, black turtleneck, black shorts, fur wrist guards and all.

"Wow." Venus drawled out and let out an impressed whistle "That was fast." The leaf-green turtle than handed her niece her weapons.

"Thank god!" Moth cheered "I really missed using my weapons!" She said and sheathed her scimitar and tomahawk, where they belonged.

"Oh, by the way, I brought someone else." Venus said, and whistled; a coyote came bounding into the room, metal claws on his paws and a holster-strap around his chest with a hunting knife on it.

"Raphael!" Moth said and patted her coyote on the head; he gave a slight growl, but likely he was anxious for the fight. "Oh, this fight is going to be brutal….."

"Come, we must hurry!" Venus urged; the two ninja's ran out of the room and up two flights of stairs to the roof. "On my signal, you come out." Venus whispered, before bursting the door open and joining her brother on the 'battlefield.' Moth stayed hidden and watched.

Quinn was gone (Moth hoped her friend was okay), some of the foot soldiers were also gone (possibly having been flung off of the roof), but Kai was head-on duking it out with Michaelangelo, who was taking on Kai and several other Foot ninja easily.

"Now Moth!" Venus called, Moth leapt out of the door and Raphael was hot on her heels, and his frothing jaws ripped the hunting knife from the strap on his chest.

"What the hell is that thing!" One of the Foot ninja yelled.

"Is that a wolf?" Another gasped in surprise when they saw Raphael; sure, mutant ninja turtles was nothing new to them, but apparently a bear with a coyotes head, with a coyote at her feet was a complete surprise. Dumb humans.

"Moth," Michaelangelo called to her, calling her by her name was safe since her comrades only knew her as 'Marlowe' "you get this Oroku brat and we'll deal with the crowd." So he wanted her to fight Kai?

Moth grinned; oh she was going to enjoy this….. "Raphael," she growled to her coyote and pointed at Kai "Sick 'im." She commanded. Hunting knife clenched tightly in his jaws, Raphael growled and charged at Kai.

"What the - !" Kai yelped as he was driven away from Michaelangelo and his _katana _fell from his hand. He had never seen a coyote before, and he'll admit he was a bit frightened by it. He back away as the blade-wielding coyote circled close to him, glaring at him with these burning dark eyes.

Moth chuckled seeing the normally arrogant Elite guard close to pissing himself "Pathetic…" She taunted, she made sure to change her voice so he wouldn't recognize her "Coyote got your tongue?"

"You!" He growled "Who are you?" He demanded.

"Hamato Moth." She replied, and drew out her scimitar "Now if you feel ninja enough, why don't you fight me, _little boy._" Man, she really was enjoying this, payback for all of the times she had to bow to this little ninja.

Kai growled and took out his _kusarigama. _"I'll destroy you, freak." He growled.

"Says the _turtle._" Moth snorted and got into stance with her swords "Now; less talk, more action!" Moth shot at him.

Kai barely had the time to raise his sword and block the strike. But the force pushing at him made him dig his feet to keep his place as he kept pushing back with all of his might. Kai ducked down in a sweeping kick to trip his opponent, who on the fall only grabbed his wrist and brought him down with them on the fall. Moth flung Kai a few feet away.

Kai jumped to his feet and charged back, starting a vicious swordfight between him and Moth. Kai was skilled, very skilled, and his training clearly showed through his performance. But, unfortunately for him; Moth was older, wiser (to um…. Some extent), more skilled and more trained. Foot ninja's were trained to get the enemy down; Moth was trained to make sure the enemy would never get up. Moth almost felt like lightening up to give him a better chance.

Almost.

When a particularly hard clash of their weapons made their swords fly out of their hands, they changed to hand-to-hand combat. Luckily, Moth still had somewhat of an upper-hand, she being in the prime of her life and Kai sill being an underdeveloped teenager, she had a physical advantage as well despite her being…. Female.

Kai threw a double-phoenix punch and his fist buried into Moth's stomach; she grunted and grabbed his wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other. She raised her knee and forced his wrist down on it.

There was a loud _snap. _Followed by an interestingly high-pitched scream from Kai. Moth dropped him and he fell to his knee clutching his broken wrist with his good hand.

Moth grabbed him by the front of his cowl, lifted him up slightly, dragged him to the storage shed (Oh, all of the other Foot ninja are distracted/being beaten up by Michaelangelo, Venus and Raphael by the way) and slammed his shell against it. "Now listen here, runt." She hissed "Tell your mommy and daddy that the Hamato clan has returned, and you're all in for a **hell **of a lot of payback." She dropped him and backed away.

Kai scrambled up and called for his remaining Foot ninja, at their masters orders all of them fled.

* * *

Moth turned to her family and grinned "I think he's got the message." She chuckled.

"_That _was Leonardo's son?" Venus asked as re-sheathed her long-sword "He looks exactly like him."

"He lacks the eyes of the devil." Mikey growled. Venus facepalmed and Moth rolled her eyes.

"Anyways, should we clean this blood off, or should I leave?" Moth asked.

Michaelangelo was about to answer, but then he tensed up "Whoever you are," he said loudly to no one in particular "get out hiding."

There was a nervous chuckle and someone emerged from inside the storage shed; a girl with long black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin with freckles. She had on a red mask and a black cowl, and in one hand she was twirling a butterfly-sword.

"Whoa, she looks like us." Moth whispered to Venus; red mask, black cowl, martial arts weapon? Either she somehow knew about them, or she was a rogue Foot ninja with a weird sense of fashion. She must have been in her late teens or early twenties.

"Who are you?" Michaelangelo asked, sounding a bit threatening, the girl only grinned.

"Sorry, I don't like to share." She said, then tipped her head to the side "Hmm…. Two turtles and a…. bear… wolf…. Thing." She stated.

"I'm **the **bear, wolf, thing." Moth retorted and crossed her arms. The girl laughed.

"What bring you here, stranger?" Venus DeMilo asked, her voice was not trusting.

"I like watching fights; I was going to take on those ninja punks myself but then you weirdo's showed up." She shrugged.

"A love of violence is a fatal attraction." Michaelangelo said, and he turned to Moth "You leave, we'll take Raphael and go home."

The black-haired girl tensed at that statement "What did you just say?" She asked, shifting nerously.

"What's it to ya?" Michaelangelo spat and he jumped off of the building and into the alley way.

Venus gave a curt nod before fallowing her brother, Raphael was tucked her hand-less arm. Moth gave a nervous grin under her hood an turned to the girl "Excuse him…. He has trust issues…. And a lot of issues…. But uh, I'll see you around." With all said and done, Moth bailed over the ledge of the building as well, back towards Foot HQ.

The girl crossed her arms and made a face "Ws it something I said?" She wondered aloud.

* * *

**Read and review please, I haven't been getting much as of late.**


	14. Weary in winter

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

Over the next five months, Moth danced between her two separate identities; searches for her mutant family became more frantic as more and more Foot ninja were injured or killed. She found herself constantly slipping away during patrol without being noticed, which was easy since with the uniforms all Foot ninja could not be told apart, she would 're-appear' soon after in her classic fur-and-bones gear, fighting her so-called comrades. Many of the times, she encountered and even fought side-to-side with the mysterious girl from the first fight, the girl refused to say her name.

Kai, despite his broke wrist, was demanded to continue his duties. He no longer went on search parties, an experienced Front-liner temporarily took his place in that certain duty. But the fight that caused his injury had left him both shaken and angry. His angst was so thick that if you strained you could probably see the congealing aura clustering around him. Not only was he viciously reprimanded by his parents for making a mistake in battle, but as punishment Leonardo broke his other wrist. Kai could not so much as train or practice the kata's he so coveted. All he could is meditate uncomfortably and glare at people as he plotted his revenge against the one who had beaten him (Whom he had no idea he had regular contact with).

Moth found she could not enjoy his suffering…. Not too much at least, she actually felt pretty sorry for the poor kid. In fact, his 'punishment' only made her hate Leonardo more. Sure, her father was tough with her growing up, but he wasn't a slave-driver trying to force her to become the world most perfect and obedient ninja like Leonardo was doing to Kai.

Oddly enough, for a cursed woman Karai really did not have much power in the Foot clan. It was like this; if the Foot clan was a puppet show, Karai would be the lead puppet, but Leonardo would still be the one pulling all of the strings behind the velvet curtain. Every action thought up, Leonardo always had the final say.

While Moth brushed up on 'research' of the Foot clan, she also studied a bit of the Oroku family tree. It was interesting, soon after a family head was dead and their child took their place, it was very soon after that the new head had a child of their own. Oroku Saki, for instance, in the three years following his fathers death, met a woman, married her, and had Karai. The mother was unknown, except she had died in childbirth…. In fact, the longest time span between a successor becoming head of the Foot clan and said head having a child was made by Karai, who, probably devastated by the death of Jade, did not have another child until six years later, with Leonardo.

Karai should never have had another child, he was only going to be killed shortly before her…..

During these months, Moth also adjusted to being around other people; she didn't talk with her mouth full, growl when someone came close while she was eating, and she got somewhat of a handle on slang. Her original cadet squad of Jones, Keene, Quinn, Travis and Reno became very good friends: Keene, Travis, Reno and Jones having finally became full-fledged Foot ninja about four months back. Moth often 'hung out' with Quinn or Keene, for reasons Moth did not know, Keene had taken it upon himself to hang out with her a lot. Not that Moth minded, she was actually glad for companionship with people who weren't snarling coyotes or giant talking ninja turtles. Hedidn't even mind the fact that she wasn't quite sane.

* * *

_**Knock Knock**_

"Marlowe! Yo, Marlowe are you home?" The muffled voice of Keene came from the other side of the door. Moth opened her heavy eyelids and blurry looked at the door with her eyes that burned with fever, she was lying on her bed under the covers, trying to recover from her latest bout of sickness. Pouring cough medicine into her drinks on a regular basis really did help, but it proved to not be strong enough to spare her from the current winter season.

"Go away!" She weakly grumbled and turned to her other side facing away from the door; she sighed when the door opened anyways. Annoyed, Moth plucked a kunai from her pillow and tossed it over her back at Keene; there was a metallic sound as he blocked it with the battle axe he'd been given as a weapon.

"Why are all of the lights off?" Keene asked casually as he flicked on the lights; the lights were extremely bright and painful for Moth; she groaned and pulled the blanket over her face. "Yo, Marlowe, why you sleeping this late?"

"I'd sleep if I didn't feel like shit," Moth growled "I'm sick, now beat it."

"Sick?" Keene inquired "What, with the flu or something?"

"No, a fever; my patrol was out in the rain and snow last night." Moth said; last night, it was raining freezing cold during half of the patrol, and then it snowed even colder the other half. Moth was already quivering uncontrollably and sneezing by the time they got back.

Keene approached her and yanked the blanket off; Moth glared and bared her teeth, out of habit, at his smugly smirking mug above her; he wasn't wearing his mask this time. "Geeze, you really look horrible." Keene remarked and helped her sit up.

Still glaring at him, Moth said "You're no doll either." Then she went into a fit of hacks.

"You okay?" Keene asked with concern.

"No; I'm sick and I have an annoying friend not letting me wallow around in misery, alone." Moth mumbled "Now I wallow in misery and you're here."

Keene let out a slight laugh "I'll help you, I got a few things that will help right away." He said before heading to her mini-fridge; he pulled out a seven-up soda and tossed it at her, Moth managed to catch it. "Drink that." He commanded, then turned to the door "I'll be right back, you stay here."

"Like I have a choice." Moth grumbled as he left; she stared down at the can of seven up before popping it open and slowly sipping some. Soda still made tears form in her eyes because of how cold it was, making her progress even slower. She was only half done with the soda when Keene returned.

"Room service~" Keene sang as he returned with a tray that had a bowl of something on it, along.

"What's with the hat?" Moth asked, referring to the paper hat that looked vaguely like a badly made origami paper boat.

"I'm a waiter, so I need the hat." Keene replied and placed the tray on Moth lap. She looked at what was on it; a bowl of soup with a spoon, and two orange tablets.

"What is it?" Moth asked.

"Chicken soup and ibuprofen." Keene said as he decided to longue on the loveseat in front of the coffee table "Take them before you eat the soup, remember to drink all of the seven up."

"Thanks." Moth stated and swallowed the pills.

"Don't mention it." Keene said "I used to tend to the sick all of the time. My little brother was born with aids, so he couldn't fight off sickness and got sick a lot."

"Poor kid." Moth said and decided to ask no questions; likely, with Keene here in the Foot his brother was probably dead "What's his name?"

"Alexander." He responded, sounding sad "He was seven years younger than me. My old man caught aids when he was cheating on mom, he passed the virus to mom and it spread to Alex while she was pregnant with him. Fucking old bastard." His voice was thick with pain and hate.

While Moth had a hard time understanding the situation (Because she for one had no idea what aids was), she still knew that his mom and brother had gotten sick because of his father cheating. She felt bad for Keene, she realized soon after joining the Foot that not everyone was born with a family that honored the concept of family like hers did.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly.

"Wasn't your fault." Keene answered, sounding uncharacteristically morbid.

Moth spooned some of the soup; she had soup often during the winter, well, forest soup anyways, forest soup was the meat of some animal boiled in water for a long time until the mixture became like a warm, meaty jell-o. This soup was good too though, even though it was a bit watery. "Patrick…." She trailed off, her friend tensed up at the use of his first time "Buck up dude, a frown is not suiting of you." She said.

Keene sighed "You always have the weirdest, formal way of saying things…. Thanks for listening…. That's what I like about you, you listen. You don't interrupt, or throw in your two cents about something... You listen."

"…Thanks…. I think." Moth said and sneezed.

Keene turned back at her and his brows furrowed "You're shivering…." He stated, Moth realized she was; oh she hated fevers, her father told her that the reason she felt so cold when she had them was because the inside of her body was burning. Keene got up from the love seat and approached her; he grabbed the blanket and draped it over her shoulders.

"Thank you." Moth croaked and ate more of soup, grateful for having a friend like Keene.

"Don't mention it; hey, I'll tell Master Kai you can't come to patrol tonight." Keene said, getting up.

"I can come to patrol!" Moth argued, only to go into wheezing fit.

"….Really?" Keene cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced "Marlowe, stay in your room. Don't worry about anything except getting better okay?"

Moth sighed in defeat; there was no stopping Keene once he decided to do something "Fine, fine!"

"Later Mar!" Keene told her before turning to the door and leaving. The fever must have been worse than she thought; the heat burned her cheeks, and her stomach was doing these strange flip-flops, in fact she didn't quite notice when her heart started racing.

* * *

Venus DeMilo and Michaelangelo snuck into the graveyard; it was night and the air of suspense hung in the mist of the crypts as it did every night. But the graveyard seemed to be peaceful tonight…. Beautiful in a morbid way, with all of the snow blanketing it. Their feet left imprints in the snow that would soon by filled by the falling flakes as they calmly walked to a certain crypt.

They were silent shadows as they continued through the eerie stillness, but a destination was still in a mind.

They came upon a crypt.

Michaelangelo turned to Venus, question in his eyes; she nodded, looking pale because of all of the dread filling her. Being the spiritual type, being in a bone yard was painful for her with all of the restless spirits wandering about.

Letting out a deep breath, Michaelangelo knocked on the crypt.

They waited.

The door opened; the two brother priests stood side-by-side, with smiles on their faces.

"Welcome." Benign greeted warmly.

"We have been expecting you." Bellicose finished, and they lead the two turtles down to the bunker deep underground.

* * *

**Some down time for Moth, Michaelangelo and Venus doing mysterious stuff.**

**Read and review**


	15. Best kept secrets revealed

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"That savage ninja my brother raised is starting a downward spiral of our clan! If our Foot ninja being viciously slaughtered was not bad enough, other Foot ninja are dishonorable leaving due to fear of that savage! I have had enough!" Leonardo yelled to Karai, and the Elite guards, he slammed his clenched fist onto the long table.

"What do you propose we do about the turtles and the savage? We have been relentlessly searching the sewers for months, but there had not been a single trace, if they reside there then they keep themselves hidden well…." Mashimi replied.

"What is it about this savage that is worse than Michaelangelo or Venus DeMilo?" Stockman asked "It is my understanding that _they _are the masters, and this new mutant is only a student."

"This savage…. Hamato Moth, takes it a step above slaughter," Kai responded bitterly "Just a few nights ago, a squad returned, half of them were very shaken and ravaged, the other half had been beheaded."

"What is so bad about that?" Stockman asked, an angry look crossed Kai's face.

"The living half returned with the heads of their fallen comrades around their necks like some sort of hellish pendent." Kai spat.

Leonardo shook his head "Michaelangelo had trained anger and hatred into the very core of that mutant….." A flagrant grin crossed his face "Good…. His student will be a more worthy advisory…." He laughed cruelly, Kai shivered, his wrists were healed now, but he could still hear the snap of his father breaking one of them for atonement….

"I cannot help but notice that they always seem to _know _our exact movements." Karai broke in "I believe there is a traitor among us….."

"None of our Foot ninja are mutants." Mashimi reminded her.

"Not all of our attackers are mutants either…"

* * *

Moth was training in the Front-Liners designated training area when a blue light suddenly came on; she sighed, blue light meant there was a clan meeting, usually boring stuff like what kind of criminal mission they were doing, what innocent people need to be killed, what items needed to be stolen….. Corrupted stuff like that.

Boredly, she followed the massed of other Foot ninja to the meeting room, which was a very huge room with a stag and no chairs so Foot ninja like her had to stand and watch (lucky them). Leonardo, Karai and all of the Elite Guards were standing on stage.

"For this meeting, we request the Front-line fighter, Joyce Quinn on stage." Karai coldly announced, there was some shuffle as a confused Quinn jostled up onto the stage.

"Yes, Mistress Karai?" Quinn asked with a respectful bow.

"Would you remove your mask." Karai commanded, voice still cold and even like polished glass.

Quinn was bewildered, but she pulled her mask off anyways. Her spikey bright red hair was messed up due to all of the built-up static from being under that mask for so long, and her blue eyes were wide and confused. Moth never actually saw Quinns face very often, but it was seemed rather familiar right now.

Leonardo's face contorted into rage, his arm snapped over to Quinn and his large three-fingered hand clamped onto the back of her neck. Quinn let out a loud squeak of pain and hunched over as Leonardo was forcing her to.

"This Foot ninja you see before you," The leaf-green turtle yelled to his minions "is a dishonorable traitor!" With his other hand, he grabbed her red hair and _ripped._

All of her red hair came off…. And black locks spilled from her head…. The red hair had only been a wig! Grabbing her _real _hair, Leonardo yanked her head up and forced her to look at the Foot ninja, her teeth clenched in pain and her blue eyes defiant.

"Oh my god…." Moth mumbled; the dark-haired ninja girl who refused to give her name; she was Quinn! But whatever possessed Quinn to….

"In the Foot clan," Karai's voice continued to say "the price to pay for treason is _death._" She drew out her katana, looking ready to strike the head right off of Quinn's shoulders

'_Oh no, I need to help Quinn!_' Moth thought in panic; but it would blow her cover! Everything she had worked up for almost a year, blown because her fur-and-bones gear was safely stowed back in the sewers with Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo.

Quinn was her friend…. But….

Karai pulled her blade back, then swished it foreword to the dark-haired girls outstretched throat.

_SHINK!_

"What the…" Karai trailed off, staring at the Ninjaken crossed in front on her to block the strike of her katana; a Front-Liner, fully clad uniform but obviously female, stood in Front of her had been violently and suddenly pushed aside and Quinn was now at this new Foot Kunoichi's side.

"You bitch!" Leonardo snarled, then turned to the other Elite Guards "Attack these traitors! I want their heads on a stick!"

"Yeah, good luck with that wackbag!" Moth hissed and roughly grabbed Quinn by the arm, she proceeded to dash away and out of the room with Quinn shackled to her side.

"Marlowe, what the hell-!" Quinn protested.

"Shut the fuck up and follow my damn lead!" Moth commanded; they were a reasonable distance away in a hallway when Moth opened a door and whisked them both into a room and closed the door.

There was a roar of many running footsteps, Moth put her finger in front of her mouth and Quinn nodded.

"Mar, thank you for -!" Quinn began, only to get Moth's fist harshly smashed into the side of her face "Oww! What the hell!"

"Who are you really? What is your real name, and what business do you have with the Foot clan?" Moth asked.

Quinn froze and contemplated, before she responded "My name is Hamato Joyce…." She sounded honest, but Moth could not believe her words.

"That impo-" Moth was about to say, but the door opened. Moth unsheathed her swords.

"Relax it's only us." A voice said and she saw Keene, Travis, Reno and Jones. She brightened up "Guys!" She sighed in relief "We need to get out of here, fast. And we need to get Qui - _Joyce _in a safe place. I'll stay behind."

"But Marlowe-" Keene was about to protest, but Moth cut him off.

"Since we're being honest here; Joyce isn't the only traitor; my real name is Hamato Moth, and those turtles who have been attacking the Foot clan is my father and aunt."

Their jaws dropped.

"That's insane!" Jones howled and gripped his red hair "Y_ou're _that mutant who's been slaughtering our _comrades!_"

"Yes, and I've also slaughtered countless animals and wandering drug lords who try to kill people who see them." Moth bitterly shot back "And the Foot clan has slaughtered many _innocent _people who just happened to be at the wrong place and wrong time, so fuck off _Cody!_"

"Where do we go?" Reno cut in, attempting to break the fight.

"Cody, go back home, take these guys with you." Moth instructed, she re-sheathed her swords "_That _is an order; enough teenaged whiny bullshit, your parents love your and you never should have run away and joined the very clan that killed your sister."

Jones' eyes were huge "What sister?" He asked in a surprisingly small voice.

"They'll tell you when you ask them." Moth said, then heard that they were being approached "Get out of here, now!"

"I'm staying, I started this!" Joyce insisted, looking passionate.

Moth narrowed her eyes, grabbed Joyce's head and slammed their foreheads together; while the brief contact caused Moth to only feel pain, it caused Joyce to fall unconscious all together.

Moth dropped Joyce to the ground "One of you pick her up, and all of you fallow Cody's lead." She continued to command, Travis picked Joyce up and hoisted her over his shoulders in a firemans-carry.

"Are you sure about this Mar – _Moth?_" Travis asked seriously.

Moth nodded, the approaching footsteps getting closer "GO!" She yelled, and they ran off; Keene stopped briefly to look back at her before running with the others.

* * *

Moth was running too – running for a way out, she needed to find a to divert the masses in a way where she did not have to face all of the Foot clan. She was good, but like any great ninja she could be overwhelmed by numbers so great when she was alone.

She felt safe when she entered what looked like an empty training hall. But she, unfortunately, was wrong.

Moth gave a cry of pain when she felt pain in her back – she twisted her head and saw a shuriken sticking out of her back, and Karai standing several feet away, seething.

"You will not get away with treason!" Karai snarled and ran towards her, before Moth could react she was decked so hard in the face that she not only stumbled back several feet, but her full-face mask was actually knocked off.

Moth was lying on her back and her head was dropped down with her hair covering her eyes, she snapped her head at Karai and glared at her with all of the intensity her amber eyes could force.

Karai's jaw dropped and she dropped her weapons; tears sprung into her eyes and she studied Moth's (now confused face) and then a almost happy look appeared in the womans green eyes as she threw herself at Moth.

The dusky-haired ninja expected to be attacked, but was startled to find Karai crouching down and…. _Hugging _her? Making little weeping sounds too, and murmuring things into her ear. What in shells name was going on here? Moth hissed feeling the shuriken pulled out of her back, and Karai mumbled an apology and some soothing words.

When Karai exclaimed something, Moth suddenly felt all of the blood in her body turn to ice.

"_Jade! It's you! I knew it! I knew you were alive!_"

* * *

**_-Blast from the past-_**

_**21 years ago…..**_

_His now cold-blue eyes stared down at the four-month-old baby sleeping in its crib; it was the baby daughter of Karai and Chaplin, Oroku Jade. Chaplin was dead, he had died in a lab accident three weeks after his little daughter was born._

_Mikey had snuck into the nursery at the Oroku Manor, he was going to assassinate Jade, in retaliation to Leonardo murdering Shadow in cold blood._

_She seemed so small and innocent – off into dreamland, completely unaware of the danger literally looming its head in form a dagger. He was going to make it quick, she wasn't even going to feel any pain._

_He tried to ignore how innocent she looked, he focused on the things he didn't like – one thing he absolutely despised about this beast was it's resemblance to Karai; it's build, it's dark hair. It didn't even look like Chaplin._

_"Night-night, beast." Mikey said and thrust the blade down._

Blood soaked the sheets of the crib…..

_Mikey blinked suddenly and the pain in his hand brought him back to reality; he looked to see that the knife was sticking partly out of his hand, which was now hovering over Jade protectively. Blood was pouring out of his hand and staining the sheets._

_Mikey blinked again; what in the world had he been thinking? ! He could not commit infanticide! He could not kill an innocent baby…_

_He pulled the knife out of his hand. Mikey stared at Jade and his heart panged, thinking of another baby who was dead because of Leonardo…_

_He would get his revenge another way._

_Mikey picked Jade up, who remained asleep, and leapt out of the window._

_And before he knew it, he was on a train to Jersey…_

* * *

**I have been waiting to do that chapter... What will Mikey have to say for himself when his daughter confronts him?**

**Read and review**


	16. Jade?

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

_"Seek and you will find they say, but I've been looking everyday,_

_for a way past this wall that's in front of my face, I'm on hands and knees searching for my faith._

_I know there's so much at stake, but I don't know if I can take another pat on my back saying I'll be okay,_

_Can't you see that my life is in disarray?"_

"Desperate" by Fireflight

* * *

"_Hiiisshhh! _Quit that!" Moth growled and snapped her teeth at Karai in an attempt to sink her canines into the womans flesh. Unfortunately, she could just not twist her head all the way behind her, and her arms being securely chained behind her back with maximum security padlocked handcuffs didn't make it any easier, neither did the sedatives currently running through her veins that made her movements weak and sluggish, like he thoughts.

"Enough whining Jade, if you had not let your hair become an unruly hornets nest than perhaps it would not hurt so much. How a pretty girl such as yourself could let your hair become so wild…." Karai muttered from behind her and continued to struggle to run the brush through Moth's wild dusky-brown hair.

"I am not Jade!" Moth groaned for the millionth time; when would Karai get it? Karai had gone completely mad, she has officially lost her marbles if she thought Moth was her dead daughter….

"Tell me then darling, what day is your birthday?" Karai asked.

Moth though "July fifteenth." She replied in a growl "Why does that matter?"

Karai squealed seemingly in contempt "July fifteenth was the day Jade was born….. And you look just like Jade…. A mother knows, my precious Jade; you are my daughter, I could tell the moment I saw your face."

"But…. Jade has green eyes and dark hair." Moth argued.

Karai sighed "No, I remember vividly; dark brown hair, like you have. And amber eyes, like Lyle's." Lyle, Lyle Chaplin? Oh right, the scientists Karai had been married to before he died in an accident.

Moth frowned; but Jade visited her dreams… She saw her…

"You are not my mother…." Moth mumbled, sounding defeated, her shoulders slumped "My only parent is my father; my father is Hamato Michaelangelo!"

Karai let out a snort of anger "I will have that bastards shell on a platter for stealing you!"

Moth bit back a angry retort as she looked down to the floor as Karai continued at her attempt to tame her wild hair. Moth had been trapped by Karai for the past twenty-four hours, and was currently being held captive in a room in the Oroku mansion. Rather than ask questions or stuff like that, Karai instead ecstatically opted to try to force Moth to 'clean up'. When Moth had been sedated, Karai had taken off all of her Foot Ninja gear, and put her instead into bright green kimono. And now she was working on her hair, god if Kair got make-up anywhere near her face….

Moth tensed up when she felt Karai's slender hand run down the scar that scored down the side of her face "What a terrible scar…. How did you get this?" Karai asked softly, she sounded concerned.

'_None of your business._' Moth wanted to say, but she surprised herself "Bear attack." She responded.

"My poor little girl….. " Karai whispered, Moth felt small comforting circles being rubbed onto her back (which was still hurting from the shuriken, but it had been treated while she was out).

"M'not your…." Moth drawled out sleepily, then fell asleep.

* * *

_She was on the Astral Plain._

"_Jade! Jade where are you! ?" Moth called frantically. She sighed in relief seeing her friend envelope from the mist._

"_Yes?" Jade asked quietly._

"_Karai has gone nuts!" Moth told her "She thinks **I'm **her daughter!"_

"_She is not wrong." Jade replied simply._

_Moth looked at Jade; no, no, no, no! It couldn't be true! It couldn't be true!_

"_But you're Jade!" Moth argued._

"_Am I, or do you believe I am…?" 'Jade' replied, and them put her hand on Moth's head, her thumb pressed against Moth's forehead._

_A vision presented itself to Moth._

* * *

-**Blast from the past**-

_**16 years ago…..**_

_A young Moth was wandering around the astral plain. The little girl was excited to see this new, vast space; oh yes, she had succeeded in meditation! Her daddy would be so proud!_

_Moth sat down and giggled as she toyed with the mist; the mist would bend at her will into whatever shapes she wanted. She made the mist twist into a cat and mouse that would chase each other, and an otter that would 'swim' in the air around her head._

_Moth's wide amber eyes fixed into the distant mist where a small, dark shape was coming towards her. It looked like a human… A little girl like her "Oh, hello!" Moth chirped; she looked up to see another girl her age; only she was very pale and skinny, with dark hair and pretty green eyes. The little girl sat across from her and fixed her own eyes on Moth. "What's your name?" Moth asked._

"_What do you think it is?" The other little girl asked, her voice a cool like ice._

_Moth thought for a moment; she looked like the woman her daddy talked bad about; black hair and green eyes. She had a daughter who was her age… "Jade?" She asked._

_The little girl smiled a little, and Moth assumed she had been right._

* * *

**-Return to the present-**

"_From then on, Moth, you convinced yourself I was Jade._" 'Jade' _told her friend._

_Moth sank onto her knees, starring into the mist with eyes beginning to tear up "No… No… It can't be… I can't be Jade…I can't be…"_

"_You can be, and are." 'Jade' said._

_Moth looked up at her traitorous best friend "You lied to me…" She accused bitterly._

"_I never told you I was Jade." The ghost-girl replied coolly. _

"_You never said you weren't either!" Moth yelled, she charged at Jade and threw a rough punch, Jade moved out of the way. "Who are you?" Moth demnded._

"_I am who I always was; your friend." Jade said with a smile and nodded, she turned away into the mist._

"_Wait!" Moth called and tried to chase her; but 'Jade's' dark shape continued to grow smaller and smaller as the distance between them grew._

"_Goodbye my friend; thank you for giving me a chance of growing up in a way…" 'Jade's' voice was suddenly much more high and childish, and a light was surrounding her dark shape now "This may be the last time we meet in your life. Remember Moth, there is no night without day." _

_There was a bright flash._

* * *

Moth's amber eyes snapped open, she found she was still in the sitting position and her hair was still being played with; though it was not brushed his time. "Wha….?" Moth mumbled.

"You took a little nap, my dear." Karai said from behind her "I imagine it must be the sedatives still in your blood, but do not worry, you will not need sedatives once I am sure I can trust you…."

Moth was silent; she felt relief when Karai finally stopped messing with her hair, but grunted in complaint when she felt Karai stand up and grab her by the shoulders to make her stand up. Moth did not get up, not until Karai forced her to by grabbing her by the handcuffs and pulling her onto her feet.

Moth was lead to the other side of the room, and Karai presented her in front of a large mirror "There my dear, don't you look much better now?"

Moth stared into the mirror in disbelief; her hair was clean and even for the first time in her life, her bangs were on the scarred side of her face (which was clean, also for the first time), and Karai had even made her hair into a braid behind her with a green bow tied onto the top of it on the back of her head. And to see herself in the kimono as well….

She never though she was _able _to look like a woman….

"I uh….." Was all Moth could manage to sputter out.

Karai gave a small laugh "Come along, Jade; you must be hungry right now…. I do not imagine Michaelangelo feeding you aside from throwing you a few scraps every now and then, you are much too skinny….."

"Shut up! You don't know jack shit about my father! You married an evil, dishonorable turtle who needs to be put to sleep!" Moth angrily reported. Then she realized something truly horrible…. If what she would not accept was true (which she would not accept), than that meant _Kai _was her half-brother…..

"Leonardo is not evil! You will take back those words, Jade!" Karai commanded.

"Make me!" Moth rebuked.

Moth gave a cry of pain as she was shoved roughly to the floor.

"I did not want to do this." Karai stated and flicked off all of the lights of the room "But for such disrespectful words to your father-in-law, I will leave you alone in this **dark **room, for you to think about what you have said."

Moth groaned; Leonardo father-in-law? This was too unreal….

The door closed and she heard locks being placed; the room was thick with darkness, the windows were all covered, so not a single ray of light shined into the room.

So she was unable to use her arms in a small, dark, room that she was completely unfamiliar with; looks like she was getting claustrophobia tonight….

* * *

"Aaahh!" Venus suddenly gripped her head.

Michaelangelo turned to her "Is there something wrong sis?" He asked in concern.

"Moth is attempting to contact me…." Venus told him, then moaned in pain "Did you have to train your daughter to be so aggressive in _every _aspect? Spiritual connection should not be so rough!"

Michaelangelo rolled his eyes and sat down in lotus; he focused in on the connection Venus DeMilo had and rode in on it.

'_Moth? What is going on?_'

'**Father! I've been found out! Karai has gone mad! HELP ME!'**

'_Whoa, whoa! Moth, what is going on?_'

'**I betrayed the Foot because the mysterious girl that has been helping us was actually my friend Quinn whom they were trying to kill, and when I tried to escape Karai found me and we fought. She knocked my mask off, and when she saw my face she became convinced I was Jade! She's holding me captive in the Oroku Manor. You have to help me, I'm sedated and hand-cuffed with maximum security industrial padlocks!**'

'_I'm on my way.' _Michaelangelo quickly replied and suddenly cut off the connection between all of them. "Do you hear all of that?" He asked Venus.

"Yes." She nodded.

"Oh god, I prayed – _prayed – _Venus, that this day would not happen!" He said and squished his hand against his face. "Karai is not a woman that will let Moth go easily…."

"That is a hideous understatement. After twenty-one years, it is likely that if Moth leaves Karai's sight again, that woman will sniff us all out and have our shells." Venus said, then set her eyes angrily on her brother "Mikey, why the _hell _did you have to adopt _Oroku Jade _anyways, and convince her she was dead? It never made any sense you take her away, and adopt her five years later to raise her to be dead-set on the idea of killing her own mother!"

"Venus, we've talked about this! I took her away from her family…. I only felt it was right to give her another one!" Michaelangelo then turned to leave "I'm going to track Moth's chi and bring her back, we'll have a game plan in the morning."

As her brother continued to leave, Venus called back "Even if you kill Karai and Kai, then the curse will only pass onto Moth!"

"I've been wrestling that for years!" Michaelangelo called back.

* * *

"Well, well, beast..." A new voice and light filled the room; Moth snapped out of meditation and glared at the doorway, where all-too-well known figure stood.

"What do you want, Leonardo?" She spat, quite literally actually; but her spittle didn't get far enough to actually hit him. Leonardo gave an evil chuckle and approached her, stepping over the spot in the floor where the spit did hit.

"I never would have thought a pale, skinny human such as yourself could have been that savage sttack-trained 'mutant' that has been terrorizing my clan..." His eyes suddenly narrowed and his fist shot right at her, knocking her square in the face and making her fall onto her back.

"I hate you." She told him with blood running out of her mouth and nose "My father will make you suffer for all of the suffering you have caused our family."

Leonardo started laughing "You think Michaelangelo actually cares about you? Do you honestly think he gives two _shits _about you?"

"I know he does! My father loves me as if I was his own!" Moth barked back agressively and bared her teeth like one of her coyotes would.

Leonardo laughed again and leered over her evilly "Could you say that with a straight face if you _knew _you are nothing but a replacement for his _real _daughter?"

A confused look eteched itself onto Moth's angry face "What are you talking about? ! He never -!"

"OROKU LEONARDO!" A new voice roared; Moth and Leonardo turned, and Moth felt an assuring grin form her lips.

Master Michaelangelo was here.

And he looked pretty damn angry... Like he mano-a-mano with the bear again.

* * *

**Man, the story actually a few chapters from being over...**


	17. Why some secrets are kept

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"Well well Mikey, quite nice of you to finally join the party." Leonardo taunted; Moth bit off a cry of pain when he yanked her onto her feet by the hair and held one of his katana to her throat. Moth took to focusing and chanting in her head.

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…'_

"Ph, this is the worst party I've ever crashed." Master Michaelangelo scoffed "I mean, where's the band? Good thing I brought my own drumsticks…." He took out both of his nunchucks and swirled them in the air "Now all you gotta do is be the drum!"

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…'_

"Big talk, Mike; I'm almost impressed." Leonardo snorted and pressed the blade harder against Moth's throat "But as you can tell, I'm holding a sword to the throat of the one who matters most to you."

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…'_

Michaelangelo clicked his tongue and didn't change expressions; if he knew Moth correctly, she had a plan brewing "You really are pathetic, you know that?"

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…'_

Leonardo angrily narrowed his eyes and sneered "What are you talking about, fool? I have all of the power one could ever dream one; control of a clan, a _son, _and the political power of a multi-million dollar company…"

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…_'

Michaelangelo laughed bitterly "Your _son _is just as pathetic as you are; come on Leonardo, my _daughter _didn't even have to fight with him, she _toyed _with him, and broke his damn wrist like a pencil…. And you can _claim _to all of the power you want, but you can never claim in rightfully; it's all really Karai's, you're just a mutant turtle screwing her…. It's funny, now matter how much power you have, once the government see's you, you're strapped on a metal table. Funny right?"

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…_'

"Sand do you want to know what else is funny, Leonardo?" Michaelangelo asked as he took a step foreword, a grin plastered on his sage-green face.

'_Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter…'_

"What?" Leonardo snapped.

"**This you genocidal bastard!" **Moth roared; she whirled around and gave him the hardest under-cut possible; Leonardo actually hit the ceiling and dropped to the ground several feet away. Moth flipped a few paces back to stand besides her father.

Leonardo looked up and rubbed his jaw; blood was running out of his mouth from his cracked and broken teeth; he eyed the maximum-security, industrial-padlocked hand-cuffs splayed on the ground; both of the bracelet parts were wide open. "Impressive," he spit with blood "you taught your pathetic disciple how to use the mind-over-matter technique."

"Me, pathetic?" Moth spat back "You're the one on your ass because you just got judo-punched by a girl."

The door to the room burst open and a mass of shuriken were thrown at them; Michaelangelo thought quickly and raised the cape part of his cowl to protect the both of them; luckily, the worn fabric managed to stop the shuriken, even if they became imbedded in the old black cloth.

"Is that who I think it is?" Michaelangelo hissed; Karai leapt into the room with her _kusarigama _at hand and ready "Oh hi Karai," he sarcastically greeted "I don't think you remember me, but my name is Hamato Michaelangelo, and you gouged my fucking eye out over twenty years ago."

Karai narrowed her eyes.

"But regardless of if you remember me or not," Michaelangelo carried on "I still remember you quite clearly…. **I'M GOING TO FUCKING MASSACRE YOU, YOU HOMEWRECKING BITCH!**" Master Michaelangelo howled into a fit of rage; he leapt at Karai like and frog and they tumbled down with his fists pounding into her face like bread dough.

Leonardo was about to run to his wives aid, but was stopped by Moth, who was wielding one of his katana, of which he had not noticed he had dropped. "Oh no," Moth growled, feeling her forest-raised animal instincts take over "I'm not done with you!"

With Leonardo and Moth locked in a deadly sword-battle, Karai and Michaelangelo battled seriously as well in a chains royale.

"You stole me daughter! I'll use your shell for turtle-soup!" Karai raved and swiped with the sickle of her _kusarigama, _which Michaelangelo only narrowly dodged "How dare you!"

"How dare I?" Michaelangelo snorted and wacked with his nunchucks, Karai jumped over it "Do I have to remind you of a certain baby that Leonardo killed?"

"You lie!" Karai accused, stopping in her tracks; as did Michaelangelo.

The red-masked turtle realized something "He kept many things from you, didn't he?" Karai was silent "He was using you Karai; he never cared personally about you, he cared about your money, your assets, and your ability to give him what he wanted; a son."

"Silence! You do not know what you are talking about!" Karai passionately shot down, but Michaelangelo caught an edge of something else….. Doubt?

"Leonardo wanted me to kill your baby, he wanted Jade dead."

"Shut up! That is a lie!"

"That was why he killed that innocent baby…. To piss me off enough that I would do something stupid and drastic…. Like sneak into a nursery in the middle of the night with a knife…"

"Shut up!"

"Tell me Karai, did you ever wonder why Leonardo always provided the answers without proof, only his words? He told you that the Foot soldiers found your babies body in the Hudson…. But he didn't, he lied to you."

"SHUT UP!"

"Can't face the truth? Let's me tell you nothing but the truth, which is something a turtle has not been doing for twenty years; Did Leonardo tell you he posted guards around Jade's nursery? THERE WEREN'T ANY GUARDS! Did Leonardo tell you that he was sure Jade was dead? He was not – he was never sure, he never even had the Foot hords _search _for her like he told you he had. Hell, if you guys had just checked a orphanage in Jersey, you would have found that the night Jade 'died', a baby girl with the same ethnicity, age and physical appearance was dropped off there…"

Karai stared at him; there was a lot of doubt in her eyes now; along with anger, hurt, betrayal and confusion.

"And another hurtful truth; Leonardo never cared about you, _never;_ he never cared that Jade was your daughter, he just saw her as something in his way;he was a power-whore, ready to do anything to get it, in fact, I would not doubt it if he was involved in the 'accident' your husband Chaplin died in…."

"FATHER!" Moth yelled; Michaelangelo whipped his head and looked to his daughter. Moth was cut up, in spite of her relentless efforts, Leonardo proved to be too powerful as a Ninja Grand-Master and Moth was just being overwhelmed as a young ninja herself.

Michaelangelo ran over and fought off Leonardo with his nunchucks "Out the window Moth, now!"

"B-But-" Moth protested weakly and attempted to pick up the sword.

"Now! Moth, it'll be alright!" The one-eyed turtle convinced, Moth nodded and ran out of the window, once his daughter had soundly escaped, Michaelangelo threw a smoke-pellet on the ground.

When the smoke cleared, he was gone. But Karai had watched the whole time; she watched Michaelangelo do something Leonardo never did. Michaelangelo had been a caring father….A caring father to the daughter of a sworn enemy.

* * *

**Looks like Karai and Leonardo are going to have a 'talk' next chapter...**

**Seriously, I've seriously revealed a lot of secrets, but there are still some questions left unanswered (Like, what's the deal with Joyce? What was with that wooden box several chapters ago? And who are the two priests?) and still more secrets to be revealed. It's easier to just say Moth has been lied too a lot in her life...**

**Read and review**


	18. Michaelangelo of the tragic warrior soul

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

* * *

"_The nights are getting colder, those faces growing old. And there is nothing you can do._

_So sing your sad excuses, you've got the scars to prove it; and I'm sure they'll sing along_

_Why did you change? Why did you bend and break?_

_When the water turned to wine, did it feel the same?"_

"Structure" by Innerpartysystem.

* * *

When Moth and Master Michaelangelo hit the sewers, they knew they were home free and they stopped to catch their breath before beginning to walk home.

The silence was heavy, and they both knew why, but Moth finally managed to ask.

"Karai told the truth, didn't she?" Moth asked in an unexpectedly harsh voice.

"About what?" Her adopted father asked coldly.

"You know damn well what!" Moth yelled; this had been the first time in her life she had ever raised her voice to her father…. She had made that mistake before when she was much younger, but that had earned her a punch to the face as punishment. "I was never really a waif, was I? Was I really born Oroku Jade?"

Her cowl-wearing sensei was silent.

"T-Tell me it isn't true!" Moth demanded, feeling a rush of emotion; No! It couldn't be true, why would her father lie to her like that her entire life?

"Moth…." Michaelangelo said in a sad sigh; he turned back to face her and there was a vacant look on his sage-green face. "It doesn't matter."

"IT DOES MATTER!" Moth screamed and grabbed a fistful of his cowl and pulled him foreword, she leered down on him, an easy task seeing as she was human and he was a turtle and was thus much shorter. "Tell me the truth, who are my real parents?"

"I am." He responded, Moth fought back a sudden strong urge to knock his lights out.

She let go of his cowl and took several paces ahead of him, she was still facing him "No…." She said in a quieter, but still harsh voice "No, you aren't me real father; a _real _father would never lie like that to his daughter!" She shouted and ran as fast as she could, back to the Lair.

Michaelangelo stood for several moments, his mind filling with the same thoughts that had been plaguing him for twenty years. And along with it was the one question that had always haunted him.

'_Did I make a horrible decision?_'

He felt hot tears well up in his single eye when twenty years of grief crashed down on him; now his own daughter hated him….. How could he make her understand? He never could….

Michaelangelo turned around, taking a different route to a very different place.

* * *

Venus DeMilo had been meditating in the Dojo that she and Michaelangelo had set up in the past several months they had lived in the Water treatment plant when she heard someone enter the Lair. Breathing deeply, she studied the one who had entered; it wasn't Michaelangelo, she could tell by the footsteps. Instead, it was Moth, whom was angry and confused judging by heartbeat and aura.

"Aunt Venus!" Moth roared and ran into the Dojo, literally. She didn't even bother sliding open the sliding paper door; she just bust right through the door like it was made out of cardboard.

Venus mentally prepared herself; this type of rage could only be brought on by one thing….

"You found out, didn't you?" Venus asked solemnly as she opened her eyes, but she stayed in lotus postion.

Moth's expression changed to crestfallen "It's true isn't it? Karai is my mother…. I'm the daughter of evil."

"That is not true." Venus reprimanded "You are the daughter of Michaelangelo…. That is a noble quality."

Moth sat across from the elder ninja, "I'm not really his daughter," Moth scoffed "I was just a tool…. A tool for his revenge; first he stole me to hurt Karai, then he trained me for the sole purpose of killing Leonardo…. And… Am I really also just a replacement for his real daughter?"

Venus stiffened up, but then sighed in defeat "Come, I must show you something." Venus stood up and grabbed the girl by the hand and chanted out somewhat of a spell, and before Moth knew it, they were in the Graveyard.

"_Did you just… Transfer us?"_ Moth asked in amazement; she knew shinobi magic was powerful, but she never thought...

"_Only our spirits,"_ Venus said, and touched a headstone to prove it; her hand fazed right through it.

"_Why are we here?"_ Moth asked.

Venus did not answer, she walked down the dirt path and lead Moth to where their family lay dead. When they were there, Venus pointed at a certain headstone.

Michaelangelo was on his knee's in front of it, one hand on the top of the headstone as his single blue eye bore at the name caved into the stone.

**Angel, and baby.**

"_The street girl he befriended, what it about her that-?" _Moth began to ask, but was cut off.

"Shush." Venus chided and signaled for her to be quiet and listen.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you…." Michaelangelo whispered to the headstone that would never answer "I'm sorry your dead because of me….. Leonardo would never have killed you if we never fell in love…"

"_He what?_" Moth gasped.

"_Think, child._" Venus told her simply.

And so Moth did: Michaelangelo had always been bitter from losing his father, brothers, and many of his friends…. But he had always been much more bitter in comparison to Venus DeMilo, who had lost the same, so what if he lost even more than that?

He lost his soul-mate….. His soul-mate, who had a baby….

"_The baby, is it his?_" Moth asked Venus, she didn't bother keeping her voice quiet seeing as Michaelangelo would never hear them anyways.

"_He said Angel never told anyone… Can you see why?_" Venus skeptically asked.

"_I can._"

Michaelangelo started speaking again "And even when he killed you, I was still convinced Leonardo was still good… But I learned my lesson the hard way when he killed our little daughter… I'm so sorry."

"_The baby Leonardo killed wasn't Shadow Jones, was it?_" Moth asked; Venus shook her head.

"_No… When we have children with humans, it can either be born full turtle, or full human. Leonardo's child was born a turtle like him, but Michaelangelo's had been born human. She was born right before Leonardo killed our father, before he returned with all of his wickedness._"

"_What was her name?_" Moth asked quietly, feeling her fathers grief that rolled off in waves.

Venus DeMilo chewed her bottom lip before replying "_Leonadi._" She answered honestly "_Angel named her that, knowing how much Mikey missed our missing brother…_"

"_What happened to Shadow Jones?" _Moth asked.

"_April and Casey did not want to risk the life of their daughter, so they… They gave her up for adoption. It was to protect her from Leonardo"_

It was starting to come together; the real reason April and Casey started to hate Michaelangelo and Venus DeMilo was because they had lost their daughter in a different way. She was alive, but they weren't there for her… They had given their flesh-and-blood child to strangers.

There had been three baby girls twenty-one years ago. Leonadi, Jade, and Shadow: One was killed, and the other two were believed to be killed, but in reality Shadow and Jade had just been taken away, raised by different parents.

"I'm so sorry Angel…. I've sufferent twenty-one years of grief and loneliness, and I still feel as if I should be punished more." Michaelangelo said, and punched the ground; there were tears running down his face "I'm so sorry Angel…." He repeated "I'll join you soon." He said, sounding like a bitter warrior.

A bitter warrior about to go into battle.

"_Come and see this, child…_" Venus said _"Grab my wrist." _She commanded and wrought back her arm towards Moth, the arm with the missing hand…. But the hand was back, probably because she was in spirit form. Moth gripped her wrist and let Venus guide her. When Venus was behind her unsuspecting brother, she placed her remaining hand on top of his head, and kept it from fazing through.

Moth saw his memories.

* * *

_Five-year-old turtle-tot Mikey was taking a stroll through the sewers; he was sniffling and there was a big bruise on his left cheek; he knew he wasn't allowed to be alone, but he didn't care._

_The little turtle-tot sat on the edge of the 'sidewalk' and let his feet float in the dirty sewer water; without warning he buried his face in his hands and started to cry histerically._

"_What's wrong Mikey?" Two voices asked; Mikey turned his teary face and saw Leo and Venus standing a couple of feet away from him. Venus and Leo were never apart, Master Splinter said they were so close because they were twins._

"_Nothing." Mikey sniffled; five-year-old Venus frowned._

"_That's not true!" She said and pointed at him accusingly "You did something bad didn't you? Is Master Splinter mad?"_

"_Nuh uh! I'm not in trouble!" Mikey shouted._

"_No fighting!" Leo said "Mikey, why are you crying? Are you hurt?"_

_Mikey nodded slowly as his brother and sister sat by him "Me and Raphie were fighting over who got to watch TV, and then he yelled at me and called me an idiot and hit me really hard!"_

"_That meanie!" Venus said and tugged Mikey's arm "Come on, let's go home and teach him a lesson!"_

"_No," Leo flatly said "Mikey, I don't think Raph meant it… He does that a lot when he gets mad, Master Splinter said he's got a… A uh… temperature."_

"_I think he says it's a 'temper'," Venus said "he said Raphie's got a bunch of angry stuff inside, and when he doesn't let it out he explodes."_

_Mikey stared down sadly at his reflection in the dirty water._

"_Come on Mikey," Leo encouraged and grabbed his arm "I bet Raph feels real bad."_

_Mikey looked up again "Really?" He asked hopefully._

"_Yeah; Raphie and Leo will be there for us forever, remember?" Venus cheerfully reminded him; Mikey nodded._

_When they got back to the Lair, Mikey was tackled in a hug by his biggest brother, Raph._

"_Mikey! Mikey, I'm really sorry I hit you!" Turtle-tot Raph told him in a panicky voice and hugged tighter as he apologized over and over again, Raphie was even crying! He really did feel bad about hitting him!_

"_It's okay Raphie!" Mikey chirped, he was really happy that Raph was sorry._

_When Raph was eventually pried off, Mikey beamed at Leo who was giving him a big, encouraging smile. Leo was the best big brother in the world!_

_-_Timeskip_-_

_12-year-old Mikey was hazily staring into space; he was buried in five layers of blankets due to the serious fever he had. He'd been sick for the past two weeks and none of the herbs Master Splinter and Venus were giving him were helping._

_He was absolutely miserable, and he was only getting sicker; he could barely eat because he would only throw it up minutes later, he could only train because standing up too long made him dizzy, and all he really could do was lay down and sleep a lot._

_And the look in Splinter's eyes told him that it would probably get really serious soon._

_Donnie said the only alternative they had was to steal medicine, but Splinter refused._

_Mikey frowned; why did April and Casey have to be gone on a trip to Europe? If they could get medicine for them, it could be over, but they weren't going to be back for another five weeks._

"_Leo?" Mikey croaked when his eldest brother approached him, a partly guilty, partly relieved looked etched on his leaf-green face. _

"_Mikey shh." Leo told him and brought something out "I brought this for you, it's medicine."_

"_How did you get it?" Mikey asked._

"_I stole it." Leo admitted "But I did it because I didn't want you to be sick anymore."_

"_But Splinter said -!" _

"_Forget what Splinter said, just take this medicine and you'll finally get better."_

"_Thank you Leo." Mikey said, smiling the first real smile in a week. This was first time Mikey had ever seen Leo disobey Splinter._

_-_Timeskip_-_

"_What are you guys doing?" Fifteen-year-old Leo asked as he walked into the living room; he crossed his arms seeing all of his siblings assembled like a dancer crew in front of the radio, which was playing some song._

"_We're trying to get a routine." Mikey chirped "Okay guys, follow me; step foreword, step back, cha cha cha, twist and yeah!"_

"_Why did I agree to this?" Raphael grumbled._

"_Don't wuss out bro." Venus DeMilo told him "If we have to do it, so do you."_

"_Yeah." Donatello agreed. _

"_Your both gaaaay." Raph insulted half-heartedly._

"_Really? Like this?" Venus said; she made a V with her fingers and put it front of her mouth, then stuck her tongue out between them._

"_Eww…" Raph said while Don and Mikey bust out laughing._

"_Want to dance with us Leo? Or do you have to train?" Mikey asked._

_Leo grinned "With a routine like that, please! Watch and learn." Leo hit the ground and did a series of street-danced often seen on MTV back when it was about music videos, and not pregnant teenagers. _

"_Damn Leo! I never thought I'd see the day…" Raph trailed off._

"_Yeah, I thought you stopped being fun when Splinter made you leader!" Don laughed._

"_Yo Mike, you just got served." Venus said with a laugh._

_Mikey comically narrowed his eyes "You win this round fearless leader…"_

-Timeskip-

"_Hey Mikey, I have something to tell you."Angel said, fidgeting._

"_What is it?" eighteen-year-old Mikey asked._

"_I… I like you. A lot. I know you're a turtle, but I think I might even love you…" _

_A bright smile filled out on Mikey's lips, his blue eyes twinkled happily "Really? I really like you too!"_

-Timeskip-

"_I just really worried… Leo's been missing for so long…" Twenty-three year old Mikey told his lover, Leo had disappeared over three years ago and they could never find him. They thought he was dead… But not Mikey, he would never believe it, he and Venus never could quite get over it._

"_I'm sorry Mikey, I know you miss your brother a lot…" Angel said and squeezed the turtles hand in assurance "But, there is a silver lining, I have some good news."_

"_What?" Mikey asked._

"_I'm pregnant! You're going to be a father Mikey!"_

_-_Timeskip_-_

"_I think it's going to be a girl, what do you think Mikey?" Angel asked._

"_I think it could be too." Mikey agreed and lovingly placed a hand on Angelo's bulging tummy; they were in April and Casey's living room, and his older friends were expecting a child of their own at this time. April's would be born a few weeks earlier than Angel's, but Mikey was still estatic, he couldn't wait to be a father._

_But he was practically balancing several plates right now; he hadn't told his family, they never even knew he was in a relationship, let alone that his lover was having his baby, how would he ever tell them?_

-Timeskip-

"_She… She's beautiful Angel, there isn't a hint of turtle in her… She looks just like you._" _Mikey said; he sat aside the bed that Angel was lying in, and was holding his daughter, who was wrapped in a pink blanket. Because they were sure the baby would have looked like a turtle, Angel had given birth at April and Casey's home, seeing as April was a doctor and helped her with the birth._

"_I don't know, she might have her daddies spirit… She sure kicked a lot." Angel said._

"_What do you want to name her?" Mikey asked._

"_Well, you can give her a middle name, how about that? I want her to have your last name." Angel said; Mikey thought for a moment. _

"_Tenshi," he said warmly "it means 'angel' in Japanese."_

_Angel giggled "You are so sweet." She said, "I want her first name to be Leonadi."_

"_Leonadi? That sounds like…"_

"_I want her to be named after your brother, I know how much he meant to you."_

_Mikey kissed Angel on the forehead "I love you." He said, then he rocked their little daughter in his arms. To the baby, he cooed "And I love you too, Leonadi Tenshi Hamato."_

-Timeskip-

"_Angel?" Mikey called as he entered her apartment; he was still grieving heavily and deeply in shock when he saw Leo kill Splinter right in front of them… But he still had his other family, they would perhaps remind him that his life still had plenty of good in it._

_But Angel didn't answer._

_When Mikey came to the bedroom door, he gaped when he saw kanji written on the door… In _blood. _He could read the kanji clearly, and he knew exactly who wrote it._

_It was Leo's name._

"_Angel!" Mikey yelled and knocked the door down._

_His heart shattered._

"_N-No…!" He whispered and headed to the bed where Angel, his sweet Angel, was laying. _

_There was a sword sticking out of her head._

-Timeskip-

"_Mikey? Why did you bring Leonadi here? Is something wrong with Angel?" April asked as her turtle friend came in through the window, his infant daughter safely nestled in his arms._

"_April," Mikey sobbed "Leo… He killed Angel!"_

"_Oh my god!" April gasped "First Splinter, now her… Why is he doing this?"_

"_I don't know, I didn't believe it while he torched our home, and I still can't fathom it… Those Foot monsters have brainwashed him or something." Mikey hissed, his voice thick with pain and grief, and his eyes bright pink from tears "April, please, will you take care of Leonadi for me? Leo can't hurt her if she isn't with me…" _

-Timeskip-

"_Raph! NO!"_

-Timeskip-

"_Donnie! Not you too…!"_

_-_Timeskip_-_

"_April… Why are you and Casey sobbing so hard?" Mikey asked; sure he was crying pretty hard too and had been for months now, but they never cried right in front of him._

"_Mikey, I'm so sorry!" April sobbed "But Leo… He came here last night, in the nursery."_

_Mikey felt his blood turn to ice._

"_He killed Leonadi!"_

-Timeskip-

"_Why did you do all of this, Leo!" Mikey demanded as he fought with his former brother._

_Leonardo was covered in intensive wounds like Mikey and Venus were, but he was still dishing out pretty badly, especially with all of his reinforments and Karai._

"_You killed my family!" Mikey screamed, he was protecting the only family he had left; Venus. Venus was on the ground, trying to stop of bleeding of her arm. Leo had tricked her and cut her hand off._

"_You were all in my way…" Leonardo said with a cruel, taunting laugh._

_Before Mikey could do anything else, Karai jumped him; he felt one of his eyes fill with pain and half of his vision go out._

_All he could see was blood._

* * *

Moth blinked when the memories all passed through; though hours had gone by for her, it had only been a split second "_That was… Horrible_." She whispered; no wonder her father was the way he was… "_Leonardo… He was so kind-hearted when you were younger, how could he be the way he is now_?"

"_We could never know._" Venus DeMilo said sadly with a sigh "_Mikey eventually told me all about Angel and Leonadi… And no, he was not trying to replace his daughter. He wanted Karai to suffer, but not you, he took you away from one family and his intentions were to give you another one._"

"_Yes, but on opposing sides. What if I become cursed?_" Moth asked.

"_As long as Karai dies first, the curse will pass on to Kai._" Venus DeMilo said "_The curse, you see, normally passes on only to the first-born son, and only passes down to a daughter if there are no sons._" She explained "_The possessing spirit, the original Oroku Saki, is a man, so naturally he would only want to possess the body of a male. Once Kai dies, the curse is dead because he has no children; is passes on only from parent to child._"

Moth nodded; good, but there was twisting in her stomach... "_But… I can't kill Karai, or Kai._"

"_Why not?_" Venus asked, shocked to hear that.

"_Whether or not I like it, Karai is my mother… And Kai is my half-brother… Father taught me to put family in front of everything… And they __**are**__ my family, by blood._" Moth said "_But even though I cannot lay a blade on them, I have absolutely no problem with killing Leonardo, especially after seeing all of that…_"

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**... Sad right? Again, I had all of this planned, so some strange things said and done in earlier chapters can make sense now. **

**Read and review**


	19. Cost of lies

**Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.**

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"_My body learns silence, _

_Like how you learned back then._

_If I find my way by your side,_

_I want you to hold me again…"_

"Offence" by Hatsune Miku.

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"You lied to me Leonardo! Admit it, for years you have told me nothing but lies!" Karai yelled to her so-called husband, who was still fuming over the minor injuries he had sustained from Moth Hamato and Michaelangelo.

"What are you pestering me about woman?" Leonardo growled.

"You never set guards for Jade even though you knew Michaelangelo would be after her! You never found her body! You never cared if she were dead and alive, and lied about it!"

Karai was surprised that rather than deny it and assure it was not true, Leonardo snorted is disdain "Jade did not matter; she was nothing but a half-blooded runt, our son did matter. Both of _his _parents were ninja, but Jades father was no warrior; he was weak peasant!"

Karai felt her blood heat up at how he spoke of her former husband "Chaplin may not have been no ninja; but he was a truly kind, intelligent man of honor with a heart of gold! Which is more than I can say about you!"

Leonardo turned glare a smoldering glare at her "What are you suggesting?" He growled.

"No real man lies like you do! No real man hates like you do! You are no man! You truly are a _freak!_" Karai growled "Jade could have been your daughter too! We could have raised her along-side Kai….."

Leonardo laughed "A half-blooded runt like her would not have been worth the effort!"

"Michaelangelo thought otherwise!" Karai snapped "When you told me you joined the Foot clan because your family was abusing you…. Was that a lie too?" When he was silent, Karai felt tears well up in her green eyes "When you said you loved me, was that also a lie? When you told me that Chaplin had died in a lab accident, was that another of your untruths? When you said you killed my father in self-defense, were you still lying?"

"It doesn't matter; Jade, your father, Chaplin." Leonardo gruffly responded "Our son is all that should matter to you." Karai felt her heart shatter; all he ever cared about was their son... And she actual bought his lies! Oh lord, she _helped _him kill his family... And they never abused him at all! They were innocent! They were killed because she believed him!

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU LYING BASTARD!" Karai said and did wicked strike with her katana to her husband, who blocked it with his own sword; Karai screamed when he grabbed her arm and snapped it into two.

"Tsk, tsk Karai." Leonardo said as if reprimanding a small child "You have gotten slow in your age….." Leonardo threw her to the wall and took out his katana "Guess I must teach you why a woman should stay obedient."

Karai weakly tried to fight back as she was beaten against the wall; blood starting running out of the various wounds on her body, and her flesh became bruised and swollen. Leonardo was using his fists and swords while she could only helplessly scream and twitch.

Finally, when all of her bones were broken, she let out a hiss when he forcefully lifted her head by the hair and outstretched her neck.

"Goodbye, Karai." Leonardo hissed and ran his blade across her throat; she let out a weak gurgle as blood poured out of her neck like a fountain.

Karai fell to the ground and stared up at the ceiling; it was be the last thing she would see in her life. Her last thoughts were her praying her son Kai would somehow be safe from his murderous father.

Soon, if felt as if the blood draining her body left her lighter…. So light she could have sword she was floating, drifting upward into a light warmer than any blanket, and brighter than the sun.

'_Karai? Karai my love, follow my voice._'

'**Ch… Chaplin? Lyle is that you?**'

'_Come my love, it is really quite beautiful here…'_

'We've been waiting my daughter….'

'**Father?**'

'_Just let go Karai, it may be early but your time has come… Come with us here… You're free of the lies now.'_

Leonardo stared uncertainly at his former bride as her green eyes closed…. But past all of the bruised, swollen flesh of her face, her could almost swear there was a peaceful smile gracing her blood-flecked lips….

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**So Karai dies here... Does anyone even read this story? **

**Anyways, yeah, the actual reason that Karai aided Leonardo in his quest to annihilate his family, is because he lied and said that they had abused him his entire life and that was why he joined the Foot. Karai believed him, and felt as if they should pay for it, but now she realizes the truth and actualy feels quite guilty.**


End file.
